Given the fundamental motivating role of religion in cultural and artistic expression all over the world, it’s not surprising that the first art work to employ the renaissance discovery of accurate visual perspective was such a work — Masaccio’s “Holy Trinity,” which depicts the three-persons-in-one-God enumerated by Christian […]
It’s clear why Welter distinguishes these works by calling them “fiber art.” Many quilts, especially those likely to be seen in the gallery today, may be no less art, but are more public in their intentions and expression. Rosanna Lynne Welter’s textiles distinguish themselves by sharing more personal, private, even intimate thoughts and feelings. What they don’t do is look like what’s expected, and in that many be found the most important clue of all.
Kathleen Peterson’s central concern, her subject and theme, which can be found in everything she paints, is harmony. … Humans learn primarily from models, and here are some that might help change a viewer’s life. It’s this positive, emotional conviction that inheres in them, and is felt by willing viewers, that accounts for Kathleen Peterson’s substantial popularity and presence in so many collections and homes.
From time to time, I’ve been asked if I’ve read Walter Benjamin’s celebrated essay, “The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Written in 1935, it remains one of the mileposts of critical art history. Benjamin argues that over the centuries when it was necessary to […]
For centuries, Western artists labored to understand and reproduce the appearance of the natural world. Art created in the 19th-century academies of Europe testifies to their eventual success, so that by 1905, Picasso could move on, reminding writer and collector Gertrude Stein that, according to previous standards, the […]
The story told in Collectable Memories rightly begins with “Swim Lessons,” in which the self-taught artist reveals an intuitive feeling for composition by crowding together five children, one of them her own daughter, in the shallow end of the pool — as well as in the lower left […]
It’s fairly obvious to the discerning that our environment is changing in challenging ways. It’s also apparent that so far, the process remains deniable. Each new degree of temperature, each addition to the severity of storms, soon becomes the “new normal,” so that the continuing slide into inhospitality remains concealed. What Jensen seeks to do in her art is to elevate that almost subliminal transition until it becomes ominous, but to do so without losing track of the appeal of the places she represents. …
What is surely one of the most thought-provoking, suggestive, and yet elusive titles attached to a work of art this season may currently be seen on the walls of Phillips Gallery. As a title, “In Between Dreams” draws much of its power from being an original turn of […]
In commercial advertisements, everything is “new.” The artists who staff Phillips Gallery know only too well that the components of art are rarely all that new, and so they change one letter of that adjective, transposing an e for an o and saying “now.” Or more formally, they […]
“Haptikos #3: (Missoula Blue)” is only one part of an expansive collection of new works by Heidi Moller Somsen, showing currently at Phillips Gallery. But it makes a big point: one that may have surprised even the artist. Technophiles and those who pay close attention to their cellphones […]
In the literally titled “Facing South,” the Utah State Capitol appears not as we usually see it, as the climax of passing through the sprawl of Point of the Mountain, the Jordans, Murray, South Salt Lake, and so on, ascending the cove-like northern end of the Wasatch Front […]
The title says it all. In September of 2022, at the AAUW Utah Women’s Art Exhibition, among nearly a hundred professional quality works of art, the Marie Eccles Caine Student Honor was awarded to Allie Wheeler for “Presence,” which celebrates not only the domestic roles of women, but […]
Many art exhibitions now include a video as part of the display, often showing the work in progress. Picasso was probably the first artist with the confidence to paint in front of a camera, brushing an image on his side of a pane of glass while the camera […]
The art and architecture of Pre-Columbian Mexico work together to produce an effect that is rightly described as “colossal,” and that’s the term artist Horacio Rodriguez uses to describe the larger-than-life ceramic heads that make up “Yuma 14.” A selection of them appropriately occupies the only solid wall […]
Walking through As You Are, the assembly of 35 recent paintings by John Sproul that make up his latest outing at Salt Lake City’s Current Work, it occasionally feels as though one of Utah’s most skillful and imaginative artists has set out to add “The Painter of Halloween” […]
There’s a contrast between the exhibition’s title, unruly, and the cooperative, even collaborative feelings evident in the works within. It’s a dissonance that all too clearly arises not in the sentiments of the artist, Alise Anderson, but rather in her recognition of some egregious, inhospitable response from within […]
Can I Say Yes to That Dress is a brand new play, written in two exceptional creative bursts ten years apart, which Salt Lake audiences are fortunate to have premiered at a moment in time when love and laughter are welcome distractions. While it sprints through five hundred […]
Deadline: Dec. 8, 2023
35×35 is Artists of Utah’s showcase of work by Utah’s young generation of visual artists. Occurring every three to four years, this exhibit features work by 35 artists 35 years old or younger, providing the artists with a unique exhibition opportunity as well as extended media coverage to help further their career.
