If you want to put Denis Phillips in a box, make sure it’s a big box — to quote singer/songwriter Dan Bern — “with lots of windows, and a door to walk through.” Call that box, if you will, “one of Utah’s most talented abstract painters,” as Bob […]
Once they were our Young Turks, upending the establishment, smashing the windows of a staid and conservative artistic world with new styles, techniques and ideas. Because they found a home in Phillips Gallery, they thrived, determining the tastes of a generation of Utah art lovers. Many are now […]
“Whimsical and humorous or elegant and monumental, Richard Johnston’s sculptures are always refined. Seemingly unyielding metals are finessed to draw out their cool, flexible, even fluid character. With considerable attention to detail, the artist delights in inventive points of articulation: notches cut in the metal, circular perforations or […]
Joe Carter might not look like a “Burning Man” regular, but this summer’s gathering is the first he has missed in years. “We went to Element 11, instead,” he says, referencing Utah’s new, cozier version of the enormous desert happening. He really got into the event that launched […]
“I’m not so sure you have to like art as much as be stirred by it; we’re so easily stirred by something we like, but can we find that emotion inside with something we question?” That’s how artist and gallery owner Bonnie Phillips introduces abstract art to inquiring […]
There’s no doubt graffiti can be a nuisance, for the personal property owner whose trashcan or mailbox becomes defaced with an indecipherable signature or the business owners who find themselves repeatedly repainting an exterior wall. But equally indisputable is that graffiti is an art form. It is one […]
While her father was busy shaping his young daughter into a pinball wizard, Bonnie Sucec’s mother encouraged her to paint pictures on the walls of their Midvale home. And later, at Jordan High, revered Utah abstract painter Don Olsen would fuel her passion for art. This doesn’t in […]
Mahonri Young won his largest sculptural commissions in Utah only after he left the state (he had been in New York for three decades when he began work on This is the Place monument). Something similar happened to Richard Johnston. The former University of Utah professor garnered a […]
Maureen O’Hara Ure shares her truth, however whimsical, however wrenching, in mixed media on panel. The incident in “The Night of the Fire,” which is part of Love & Work, her fascinating solo show at Phillips Gallery through Nov. 11, actually occurred in 1978, when the timeworn apartment […]
The dual exhibit of Tom Bettin and Rebecca Livermore, at Phillips Gallery this month, proves that the gallery experience should be an open one, a source of enjoyment for whomever steps inside the gallery door, regardless of educational or demographic background. Basic ideas of abstraction and landscape inform […]
Pat Eddington, 63, a Salt Lake City artist and much-honored teacher, died March 26 at University Hospital following a sudden illness. An artist with a distinctive visual style who had an expansive impact on our community, he was also a man consumed with teaching, with the world of […]
When Dave Malone exhibited at Salt Lake’s Phillips Gallery two years ago, his two-dimensional works were small to midsize, abstract pieces that measured anywhere from a foot square to a standard 26” x 40” sheet of watercolor paper. At his current show, most of the works are twice […]
