Along with form and content, composition and dynamics, color is one of the expressive building blocks of art. But color can also be as elemental and essential as those stand-ins for truth: Black and White. At the Eccles Art Center in Ogden, the 18th Annual Black and White […]
Above the steel stairway that connects the upper and lower galleries at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, for the duration of the current exhibition, a large monitor displays, in a continuous loop, recent satellite images of Great Salt Lake by UMOCA preparator Jeff Griffin. Watching the lake’s […]
There are things in life that are predictable, normalcy that we can expect, bringing security in the ordinary. Dirt, for example, is often, quite literally, below our notice. It is a guarantee of firmness beneath our feet, allowing us to step with little thought or worry. In Hózhó […]
Kent Christensen is an acclaimed artist, illustrator, and designer as comfortable in New York City and London as he is Sundance or the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City. For more than four decades he’s been making art from all of those places, as we see in […]
Among the more persistent and valid criticisms thrown at creators, critics, curators, and collectors of the art world alike is this: Your art is not for anyone except yourselves. Blustering indignation aside, the message stings because, in some cases, maybe even many, it’s true. Artworks abstracted beyond all […]
Flanked as it is by the Jordan River Parkway’s tangle of box elder, cattails, and saltgrass, the Day-Riverside branch of the Salt Lake City Library is a fitting venue for the vibrant riot of nature in the paintings of Jerry Clifford. A native of Northwest Michigan, Clifford became […]
Tears are made of salt water. Grief is love. Whatever I have come to know as love and grief, I have learned from Great Salt Lake. -Terry Tempest Williams The fate of Great Salt Lake is hardly more than a footnote in the longer story of how immigrant […]
Often, when an artist with a well-established, familiar, even popular mode decides to undertake something new, the news travels fast. So, many who gathered at David Ericson’s gallery in the Avenues for the unveiling of Emily McPhie’s new work were there in anticipation of something they’d not seen […]
Bené Arnold, a seminal figure in Utah’s dance community and Ballet West’s first Ballet Mistress, passed away on January 25, 2024, at the age of 88. Arnold’s legacy is marked by her significant influence in shaping the careers of countless dancers at Ballet West and the University of […]
In the hierarchy of values, materials such as ink, marble, uranium, and gold are worth less than the alchemical power of art. And art, in turn, is less valuable than life. This may help explain why the collages of Liberty Blake, though made of paper—and often of discarded […]
Bountiful may not be known as a mecca for fine art, but Ramble Gallery is hoping to change that. On Main Street, at the edge of Bountiful’s Historic District, and a short 4-minute walk from the Bountiful Davis Art Center, Quin Boardman, Dave Trevino and Brodie Poll have […]
Given the level of skilled technique we so often encounter today, it’s not all that unusual to learn that what appeared to be a photograph is actually a painting. The only reason this took until now is that for centuries the masters didn’t have photos to mimic, and […]
Comprising 12 individual watercolors pasted to panel, Aloe Corry’s “Care Instructions,” is representative of her narrative approach to art. Words frequently appear in her work, but in the case of “Care Instructions,” the gestures of the hands propel the narrative. The panels depict a step-by-step process for bandaging […]
Salt Lake City artist Trevor Dahl’s artistry is a visual odyssey that intertwines the personal with the universal, translating his inner experiences into a language of dream-inspired figures and landscapes. With a practice rooted in “free doodling,” Dahl forgoes conscious thought to tap into a realm of […]
The practice of carrying one’s own water in a purpose-made bottle—a modern canteen—has become commonplace, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that the person carrying water also has a carafe set aside for the purpose at home. And they may even have a traditional silver spoon they […]
“90 Minute Permissions” by Holly Rios is a thought-provoking collection of cropped film stills that scrutinize the portrayal of gender roles in horror films, primarily from the 1970s and 1980s. Rios selects scenes that depict women in states of distress, stripping away context that might provide a more […]
Sam Wilson was the first Utah artist whose work caught my attention, and he remains foremost for me among the many fine painters, sculptors, printers, assemblers, media mixers, and raconteurs I’ve been privileged to meet in the years since. Sam never put as much effort into spreading his […]
Art Access has gone through many changes since its salad days as a must-visit gallery early in the new millennium. Over the intervening years, many of Utah’s best-known artists took turns helping artists of proven merit, but who were prevented by various circumstances from achieving their potential, to […]