Utah Exhibition Reviews published in 15 Bytes, Utah’s art magazine, including reviews of local Utah artists, regional artists, group exhibitions and traveling exhibits of national and international artists.
Jerrin Wagstaff’s American Mythology, currently on display at Modern West, is a profound exploration of abstraction, narrative, and the myths embedded in the American landscape. Seamlessly blending historical context with a striking visual language, Wagstaff creates works that are at once accessible and challenging, inviting viewers to grapple […]
One of the things that women are generally better at than men is building a community. Get men together and many compete for status, want to be at the top of whatever they make. Women are more likely to seek connection and bond over their experiences than try […]
The answer to the question, “What is a lake?” depends on whom you ask. To a farmer, it might be a reservoir, storage for irrigation water. To a politician, a recreational resource for marinas full of boats. To the Romantic painters of the 19th century, a lake was […]
It’s hard to dispute painter Jennifer Nehrbass’s assertion that, from a female point of view, the popular story of the European exploration of the West doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s not just that women’s essential roles, and even their presence, are largely written out of that […]
In viewing photographs, we tend to look right through or past the photo itself, with all its elaborate technical background information, and imagine we are seeing the object in the picture as if it were actually present. In her piece “Poised Compression,” Rosa Barba short-circuits that impulse by […]
Leonardo da Vinci taught that a portrait should begin with the skeleton, to which muscles, flesh, and if appropriate, clothing would be added. The point was to be aware of the presence within the subject of those parts that gave form to the person: the form that became […]
Nestled in Price, Utah, the Utah State University East Gallery is a hidden treasure along the familiar route to Southern Utah. The drive to the gallery itself invites a moment of reflection, encouraging you to consider your place within the broader landscape. As you approach, you pass through […]
Artworks are vessels of mystery. How could they not be when no one really knows where they come from or how they get here? Even so, there’s an uncommon amount of mystery in the front gallery at BDAC this month. Artist Antra Sinha and musician Megan Simper have […]
It’s been half a century since artists began to see themselves as kin to the legendary canaries in the coal mine, those storied animals that gave the alarm when workplace environments deteriorated to the point where the workers’ lives were endangered. Here in Utah, where there are many […]
As far as we know, animals were humanity’s first muses. From Paleolithic cave paintings to medieval manuscripts, they have served as symbols, metaphors and companions, shaping how we see the world and ourselves. Today, as our relationship with the natural world becomes increasingly fraught, artists like Nine François […]
When she talks about her painting, Julie Berry calls it “an adventure,” which is a pleasure to hear. Art is properly always an adventure, in the sense that the real artist begins with the modesty to admit she doesn’t know and can’t always control where she will end […]
Medieval Europe had to get by without many of the skills that had made the classical world so splendid. They couldn’t cast metal like the Greeks and Romans: Emperor Charlemagne’s portrait on horseback was a successful bronze casting, but it fits neatly on a desktop. They could build […]
A visitor from another state coming to Utah at the turn of the millennium could not have missed the remarkable vitality of the arts throughout the region and across the range of media. Here, seemingly everyone has at least a little bit of musical skill and practice, with […]
It’s always worthwhile to keep an eye out for new places to see art, but lately in Utah it’s become vital. Independent galleries come and go, but lately our public galleries have become endangered. The Rio and Alice, each in its own way a wonderful place to see […]
Downstairs at Brigham Young University’s Museum of Art, between an exhibition highlighting Christian art from the 14th century to the present and two others exploring contemporary American art from the 1960s to the present, hangs a single work by Massachusetts artist Joshua Meyer. Or, rather, eight works hung […]
Even though some galleries report selling more art online than in person, exhibitions remain important to artists, patrons, and dealers. The opportunities offered most artists are still either the one- or two-person version, where artists can exhibit in depth, or the group show, where they typically have one […]
Not having done similar computations for every other gallery in the museum, I don’t know if the Dumke Gallery is representative of the entire exhibition—but if you’re inclined to walking in straight lines it’s the first one you’ll come across, so—in it, out of 23 works on display, […]
I wanted to know about the fish. As Colour Maisch interviewed artist Fay Ku before an overflow crowd, they stood before two drawings of enormous-looking, strange fish. All the other drawings were of human figures, sometimes on horseback. But the monstrous fish stood apart. Entering Material, the combination […]
