Installation view at ONE Modern Art, with, from left, two works by Frank McEntire, three paintings by Janell James and a painting by John Bell with a sculpture by McEntire in the foreground.

A perennially repeated yet mythical image of the artist holds that each is a solitary figure, working and even living entirely in isolation, whether because unable to get along with others or having no desire to. In reality, the successful artist often resembles more the CEO of a well-oiled and smooth-running corporation, one of the artist’s own creation. And while the moment of true creation is more than likely to be a solitary experience, it’s surrounded by all sorts of shared labors and hours spent together with others. These begin at the beginning, when the neophyte studies with a willing teacher, and include collaboration with fellow artists, consultation with a framer or gallery expert, encounters with collectors and fans, and the list goes on.

Sometimes cooperation takes unexpected turns. In 2003, when John Bell started ONE Modern Art, his combination studio workshop and gallery, then in Sugarhouse, he expected to show work that other galleries had turned a cool eye on. He also thought he’d be going alone, and that was largely the case until 2018, at his second and better-known location, when Janell James came aboard as his gallery partner. Then, as now, James was making her remarkable nature studies, done in her own acrylic-on-acrylic technique, in a specially-prepared space in her home; but she realized that Bell’s choice of an industrial building for their gallery could provide her with room to cut loose and do some large painting. Bell, one of whose paintings measures about 75 feet in length, could appreciate what sharing his space meant to an artist with a yen to go big.

With another move to a third space, a pattern emerged. The two with their names on the gallery have their own works on display, including work James made in the gallery workshop as well as those brought over from her home studio, all alongside Bell’s large and inventively mixed media works. However, they arrange these alongside works by other artists, friends and colleagues, who may show in other venues, but also find in One Modern a chance to decide for themselves, or in consultation with the generally agreeable John Bell, which works to show. The current exhibition, which follows one by Cordell Taylor and Lenka Konopasek, is a classic blend of paintings by Steven Larson on the walls surrounding sculpture by Frank McEntire. It will enjoy a long opening reception, from 3pm until 8pm on Saturday, April 5th. Because the gallery is only reliably open by appointment, this is a good time to see the extensive display of largely unseen works.

Painting by Steve Larson.

As a painter, Steven Larson performs a feat of seeming magic, inverting the all-but universal way we look at paintings. Consider: outside of the television and cinematic experience of seeing a closeup detail that pans out, opening into a larger view—often for what has come to be known as the “Ken Burns” effect of panning across and through and so animating the image—it’s almost always necessary to see the work first from a distance, where all of the canvas or panel is visible at once. The viewer takes in this totality, then on approach, sees more detail become visible. At some point the reality of its being a painting and not a window into another place will start to take over. The entirety of the experience is linear. A Larson, on the other hand, may look like one thing from a distance—typically an abstract array of areas of color that might not at first encourage coming closer—but for the viewer who does approach, a revelation awaits. Details, often extraordinary in number or power of illusion, come into focus. Instead of an image falling apart, as so many masterpieces deliberately do, Larson’s subject matter emerges up close from what optical scientists call the “confusion” observed in a distant view.

When I saw these works for the first time, they were not labeled with titles, which makes it hard to talk about specifics. One diptych near the gallery entrance stood out for being composed of two landscape rectangles, each with a passionately expressive view of wild lands and violently stormy skies. The one on the left features a large lake, behind which a sharp spire emerges above the lakeshore, then a series of cliffs feature fine blue lines that loop across the heights. The other panel displays what appears to be a valley, like Yosemite or the drowned Hech Hechy that, before it was dammed to create a reservoir for the city of San Francisco, was said to be the most beautiful valley in all the West. While each Larson image is open to interpretation, what one sees tends to become more solid when gazed at over time.

Painting by Steve Larson.

Painting by Steve Larson.

In another, almost square panel, the chaos seen from a few yards away resolves with a closer point of view into a figure of a woman sitting in the middle distance, possibly wearing a violet shoe and with a definite table behind her. Viewers disagree over whether she is wearing the shoes, one of which appears too far from her to be on her foot, but agree that a paper sack sits nearby on the floor. Other details are open to interpretation, and it comes to mind that such indefinite interiors are not equally appreciable by all audiences, some of which prefer to be shown a less ambiguous scenario. No one else has recently shown works of such elaborate, yet open-ended parts, although Jerrin Wagstaff’s retelling of the history of 19th century landscape does come to mind.

Frank McEntire is well known to local audiences, and to be sure, his reframing of found objects continue to tickle and challenge the imagination. Among his recent features is a focus on smaller objects, which he has always made but not always shown in such large numbers. He still enjoys juxtaposing religious iconography—what might be seen as the science of past cultures—with technological castoffs from our own time. Getting these “two cultures,” as C.P. Snow labeled them back in 1959, in proper perspective and proportion is a conundrum that McEntire never tires of contributing to.

Painting by Steve Larson and sculpture by Frank McEntire

In various places around the extensive collection of Larson’s and McEntire’s displays, the promised efforts of  ONE Modern’s residents include a vertical triptych of trees by Janell James and two mixed media panels by John Bell. The trees, which on first sight may appear to be a single towering giant, appear in purples, blues, and blacks on an acid green background rippled with orange. The color names don’t sound much like realistic choices, but to gaze up—the trio extends well overhead in the space provided—they become a vividly real forest scene. One of Bell’s, done entirely in what is said to be the blackest black paint ever made, places a wrapped bust in front of a wrapped panel, both swathed in loosely arranged fabric that creates the sort of voluptuous drapery study that fascinated and challenged medieval and renaissance artists. The other work, though quite unlike the first in its effect, finds four triangles of less rippled, more regularly textured black arranged atop a luminous sky-like square. It’s not impossible to generate meanings for these evocative marvels, but it might be hard to find two audience members who would agree to accept a single reading of either of these utterly original visual presentations.

Black painting by John Bell.

ONE Modern Art is relatively new to this location, near the West Temple offramp from the 81 Freeway. Some amenities of more conventional venues are still in progress. I was reminded of the recent sensational book about the Louvre that urges readers not to arrive on an empty stomach or with a full bladder. Let’s all take heed and not slip into the habit of expecting the best cutting-edge art to always be seen in civilized places.

Visceral Morphology, featuring works by Steve Larson and Frank McEntire, ONE Modern Art (851 S. Richards St.), Salt Lake City, April 5-26. Reception, Saturday, April 5, 3-8 pm.

All images courtesy of the author.

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.