A few years ago, artists began making work that sounded the alarm about the state of the Earth. It was a bold effort, but one came away from it—if in fact one didn’t approach it in the first place—with the realization that no work of art, or even […]
Surely one of the necessary attributes of any artist’s studio ought to be security, on several levels. Picasso’s million dollar studio, in a couple of French chateaus, included numerous spaces, each behind a locked door, and he enjoyed waving around a giant ring of keys as he unlocked […]
On the way to a creative life, many eager students are given advice approximately based on their interests. An avid reader might be urged to become a writer, though in truth there are numerous perfectly good and potentially more appropriate vocations for readers. One who draws compulsively may […]
In the midst of our rapidly evolving, instant-gratification society with constant distractions, I believe we’ve lost our way. —Nina Miller These days, when so much public commentary is clearly calculated to avoid offending our litigious oligarchs, we may well find ourselves searching the national conversation for evidence such […]
In the foreground of a tall, slender watercolor a luminous yellow oval on the roof of a wet-looking car identifies it as a Taxi. This spot of color is echoed by the light from four narrow windows in the somber, gray structure that lines the street behind it. […]
Sometimes a gallery shows two artists simply because that’s who they have. There’s nothing wrong with that. Or they may have discovered an unknown pair: two deep excavators, say, who are mining the same subject matter. Some artists prefer to show with their friends. Again, nothing wrong there. […]
Modern West Fine Arts has had three successive locations in Salt Lake City, which is an unusual number for a gallery. For those who fondly remember the days when critics told us what was good and what was bad about things, here are some relevant opinions. The first […]
The most commanding work at Polarized America, in the Gallery on 6th at Utah Valley University, might be Kristina Lenzi’s “Pantsuit Pattern.” Essentially an actual American flag hung on a back wall, its brilliant red, white, and blue make it strikingly visible from throughout the room, while the […]
There’s a wisecrack by Ad Reinhardt (or some say Barnett Newman) that a sculpture is something you bump into when you back up to get a better look at a painting. That notwithstanding, having the two media share a gallery can be an effective use of space. One […]
“My paintings stem from an innate desire to express something words cannot,” says Anne Wolfer in her artist statement. The challenge to those who write about visual art may never have been more succinctly stated. Then again, the unmistakable differences between the way she represents the visible world […]
Trent Call is such a protean inventor that anyone faced with the present task might be tempted to start by recalling any number of personal favorites: the facade facing the TRAX station at Ninth South that serves as an invitation to one of the most innovative urban enclaves […]
There is absolutely nothing wrong with painting from photographs. Even artists who never, ever work from them will tell you they have no quarrel with painters who do so. Photography was invented in the 19th century by painters seeking to shorten the arduous path that leads from three-dimensional […]
Several years ago, when so many of our artists and their galleries were devoted to sounding the alarm on behalf of the environment, and particularly the disappearing Great Salt Lake, Pamela Beach had her own perspective, literally, on the matter. From the front porch of the home where […]
Although I said nothing aloud at the time, I was disappointed in the recent Spirituality and Religion exhibition at the Springville Museum of Art. It seemed as though the show’s title had been reversed. While there were countless narrow images of specifically Christian traditions, and even more of […]
When F. Scott Fitzgerald famously remarked that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” he might just have been referring to the everyday cognitive skill of any […]
To be sure, some parts of the job of making art can be challenging. But there is much to admire and covet in the life of an artist. You get to largely invent yourself and have the freedom to choose your work each day. And where most bosses […]
The late folk singer and labor activist Utah Phillips liked to quote his crony Idaho Blackie, who claimed that voting couldn’t change anything, as evidence for which he claimed that if it could, it would be illegal. What neither man could have anticipated was the extensive contrary evidence […]
For centuries, an essential division of labor ruled over humanity’s closest animal companions. There were those humans kept for work alone: farm animals, useful creatures, those we domesticated but didn’t exactly tame. Those we ate. And then there were the dogs, which still had assigned labors, such as […]
This month, David Ericson Fine Art once again presents two artists whose differing styles highlight the breadth of contrast encompassed by today’s art. While a former professor like me wants to see this as a teaching opportunity, Dave Ericson insists that the arrangement is practical. Alternating the still-life […]
