Catherine Nugent

Catherine Siri Nugent is a visual artist currently working in drawing and mixed media. She was an instructor in studio art at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock from 2000 to 2010 where she received her Master of Arts in drawing and sculpture in 2000. At UALR, Nugent was a Phi Kappa Phi Honorary Society member. She did graduate work in costume design at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and was an exhibiting member of the Piedmont Craftsman’s Guild in Winston Salem, NC. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Vermont, Burlington, in 1975, following a diploma in Nursing from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1966. She served in the US Army Nurse Corps from 1967 to 1969.

Nugent has been a free-lance costume designer at the Arkansas Repertory Theater in Little Rock and at the Ryman Theater in Nashville, Tennessee, where she designed costumes for the musical Always Patsy Cline. She has worked as a costume designer for dance companies including Stephanie Nugent Dances, and Ririe Woodbury Dance Company, where she designed costumes for a premier work by the internationally known choreographer, Laura Dean. In June, 2005 Nugent collaborated with artists of other disciplines in the Summer Theater Workshop at the University of California at Santa Barbara. While there she designed costumes and set for the modern dance performance, Untitled Interior. The other collaborators included dancer, choreographer and professor of dance at UCSB, Stephanie Nugent and New York-based musician, Eve Beglarian. Subsequent performances of Untitled Interior were at the Diablo Theater, Los Angeles, New Amsterdam Dance Theater, NYC and Center Stage Theater, Santa Barbara.

Nugent’s individual mixed media and installation work has been seen in group and invitational shows. These include the UALR Faculty Show 2002 and the Eat invitational 2003 and the annual juried Regional Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Art Center in 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2007. In spring, 2003, Nugent participated in a stage performance of her installation, Morning Paper, Mourning Prayer. This collaboration with Stephanie Nugent, modern dancer and choreographer, was held at Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara, California, Spring 2003 and at Teatro ai Coli in Padua, Italy in Spring, 2005. In Winter, 2004, Nugent also presented a solo exhibition entitled Tutto Plastico at Gallery 26 in Little Rock. This all-plastic installation included garments and sculpture. In Spring 2004, she was included in an invitational show, Seduced by Color. This show was presented by the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh and the Brewhouse Gallery in conjunction with Fiberart International ‘04 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

In Fall, 2014, Nugent’s installation Teaching a Canary to Sing was shown at Gallery 1, UALR. In Spring 2014 the same installation was presented in the Southeastern Arkansas Community Arts Center in Eldorado, AR. She is currently represented by M2 Gallery, Little Rock, AR where she has participated in numerous shows since 2000.

Nugent’s work has been reviewed in Fiber Arts magazine, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, and the Arkansas Times in which the installation Morning Paper, Mourning Prayer was described as “stealing the show.” In 2004, Ms. Nugent received an Individual Artist’s Fellowship Award from the Arkansas Arts Council. The installation, Reach was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2007, 49th Annual Delta Exhibition.