Strause to display exhibit, “Women, Standing in Power” through March

Little Rock-based oil painter Katherine Strause will present her exhibit, "Women, Standing in Power," at the University of the Ozarks' Stephens Gallery through April 1 as part of the University's Artist of the Month Series.

There will be a reception to meet the artist from 5-6 p.m. March 31 in the gallery.

Strause said her work is rooted in in memory, lived experience, and the emotional architecture of women's lives.

"I paint women not as symbols or archetypes, but as complex, enduring presences - layered, scarred, luminous, and resolute," she said. "The Fierce Women series grew from a deep need to confront strength directly. These figures do not perform power; they inhabit it. They stand in it quietly, sometimes defiantly, sometimes tenderly - but always fully. I am interested in that moment when vulnerability and authority occupy the same body."

Strause said her earlier works explore similar terrain: personal history, Southern identity, inherited memory, and the quiet resilience passed from one generation of women to the next.

"Across collections, the through-line is endurance - not as spectacle, but as daily practice," she said. "After a two-year pause from exhibiting, this body of work feels less like a return and more like a continuation. The break sharpened my understanding of why I paint. Painting, for me, is an act of witnessing. It is a way of honoring the emotional truths many women carry but rarely name aloud."

She said oil paint allows for weight and revision.

"I build surfaces slowly - scraping, layering, allowing history to remain visible beneath the present image. The physicality of the medium mirrors the psychological layering within the subjects themselves. These women are not asking for permission. They are not waiting to be understood. They are standing in power - grounded in experience, marked by history, and wholly present."

Strause's commitment to honoring women's stories extends beyond the canvas. She is the illustrator of "From Almeda to Zilphia: Arkansas Women Who Transformed American Popular Song (2024)" by Stephen Koch, a landmark contribution to Arkansas music history and recipient of the 2025 Award for Excellence for Best Research in Recorded Popular Music from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections and the 2025 Arkansiana Award from the Arkansas State Library Association.

Strause previously served as chair of the Department of Art at Henderson State University, concluding her tenure in 2022. She maintains an active studio practice and works as a curriculum consultant in visual and performing arts program development.

Topics: Art