Matthew Choberka, a well-liked and influential painting professor at Weber State, can briefly be seen in overlapping exhibits in two of the most progressive galleries in Utah. His work could be called postmodernist, or painterly– environmentalist, but it seems to me that he partakes of a mainstream movement […]
When we say an artist puts her life into her art, we usually mean that important events become significant subject matter. But for Sandy Brunvand, the process is both subtler and more pervasive. Hearing her unravel the origins of her paintings and prints, whether in exceptionally accessible written statements […]
Michael Kimmelman, writing in the New York Times, had this to say about Andrew Wyeth, who died in his sleep earlier today (Friday, January 16th): “Andrew Wyeth, one of the most popular and also most lambasted artists in the history of American art, a reclusive linchpin in a […]
What decides our fates? Greek Sophists thought it was character: who I am would determine what I am. Astrologers argue that when we are determines who we are. Once upon a time, where we lived made many choices for us, but is that still true? With the coming […]
“We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately” Benjamin Franklin In Utah, artists divide themselves into a variety of subcategories according to where they live, the mediums they use to make art, and their loyalties to various historical art movements. None of these choices is […]
No one really knows what makes a person become an artist; talent apparently can sprout in almost any circumstances. Then again, if the seed thrives, it may well feel possible to discern how an artist’s work grew out of the particular events of her life. If there were […]
An Innermost Journey: The Art of Shauna Cook Clinger, in the main gallery at the UMFA through February 15, 2009, raises old questions about the relative importance of content versus form. The museum’s guidebook, Quarterly, credits Cook Clinger with “great artistic skill,” but such assertions are always subjective. Too often they […]
The Object Moved by Its Own Success: Alex Gross and Sandy Smith at CUAC by Geoff Wichert “These artists are masters of their materials; their work is clear where they want it to be clear.”—Adam Bateman, founding curator of CUAC’s contemporary program. Marcel Duchamp provocatively said that the […]
A joke popular in the mid 20th century went like this. Recovering from a near-death experience, a man tells the eager listeners crowded around his hospital bed what happened to him after he had, for all intents and purposes, died: “I went to heaven,” he tells them, “and […]
Speaking of art . . . by Geoff Wichert A painting by Sunny Belliston hanging this month in the main gallery of the Central Utah Art Center (CUAC) looks something like a segment of wooden flooring that has been tilted upright and painted black. Narrow vertical stripes have […]
COLOR FROM A LOCAL HIVE by Geoff Wichert Regular readers of 15 Bytes may have had their curiosity piqued by the appearance, in the current issue, of wax used as a finish for works of art made in other media, such as photography. The works referred to in […]
The task of 15 Bytes being to connect artists with the public in Utah, we usually try to choose exhibitions for review that are up long enough to allow readers to go and see for themselves. Even though few of our readers may drive to St. George or […]
Encaustic is among the most versatile mediums used by painters. Readers of the August issue of 15 Bytes will have seen Amy Adams use it to sculpt human heads covered with convincing flesh. Other artists, including some who will be discussed here, use wax to impart a quality of finish […]
A comment in a recent essay by physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Steven Weinberg recalls one of the often–overlooked, fundamental truths about modern art. Writing about the impact of science on religious faith, Weinberg says “Perhaps I emphasize belief because as a physicist I am professionally concerned with […]
Next to Christmas, the sweltering Dog Days are the season for nostalgia, perfect for recalling the glorious summers of youth—when sports and picnics and swimming and romance were wont to bloom in tall grass and long afternoons—even while enjoying today’s diminished but still pleasurable version. Despite its […]
Thirty years ago, an artist gave me a business card bearing an embossed drawing of a skull. Gripping the skull was a C-clamp. I remember the artist vividly, but I also recall his name, Weiss, and that it’s properly pronounced “vice.” What’s more, I still have that card […]
Scopophilia, the inborn love of looking, and espionage, making war with the eyes, are neither identical nor mutually exclusive activities. Voyeurs, who seek the scurrilous and scandalous, can be found at both ends of the spectrum, and so can artists. Operation Salt, a loose association of (currently) ten artists […]
It’s one of the ironies of our time that, while most novels and poems are bought and read by women and most self-proclaimed professional artists are women, men in these fields continue to get a free promotion in significance and importance, and stating that ones art is rooted […]
In 1986, when I flew to Ireland to begin a summer walking the extensive hiking trails of the British Isles, there weren’t too many choices for taking photographs along the way. I ended up at security in each airport I took off from—Portland, Oregon, and Atlanta, Georgia, […]
