During lunch at Kyoto, painter Oonju Chun asks, “Why do we say, ‘If I were . . .’ instead of ‘If I was . . .?”’ — one of those nitpicky English questions a writer hates to answer with “Ummmm . . .“ * But does. So, it […]
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 […]
“Metallic Dream,” Lee Deffebach, 1986. 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 […]
photos by Simon Blundell 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 […]
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 […]
[slideShowProSC width=”600″ height=”600″ album=”653″] 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 […]
With Randee Levine it is hard to tell what comes first, philosophy or art. Levine’s art is an extension of herself, a physical manifestation of the psychological process and understanding that has brought meaning and awareness to her personal life, and has become central to her professional life […]
To start out 2016 we checked in with some Utah artists to see what they are up to in the New Year. We’ll be running these short features throughout the month. When you think “Connie Borup” you think “nature” and often “trees,” though that theme has morphed in […]
Other than as categories, art terms like ‘representational’ and ‘realistic’ aren’t very helpful. The weightlessly floating, elongated figures of Byzantine mosaics ‘realistically represented’ the spiritual truth so important to those who lived in the dark age that followed the fall of Rome, that souls and eternity mattered more […]
Liberty Blake makes music with visual art. The UK native turned UT resident blends together pieces of found, salvaged and purchased paper to create works of simplistic profundity. Her current show at Phillips, in which more than 20 new works are displayed in the downstairs Dibble Gallery, are […]
“As a sculptor, my concern is for form,” Larry Elsner wrote in 1977, “a maddening search for the unity of space and mass.” An Idaho native and longtime Utah State University professor, Elsner would always choose form over function, regardless of the medium in which he was working: […]
Denis Phillips is every sort of artist: he flows comfortably between abstraction and realism, moves easily from the Renaissance of restoration work and making frames to the Space Age of creating his own computer-generated prints and synthesizer music. “I like the change,” he once told me of his […]
