The answer to the question, “What is a lake?” depends on whom you ask. To a farmer, it might be a reservoir, storage for irrigation water. To a politician, a recreational resource for marinas full of boats. To the Romantic painters of the 19th century, a lake was […]
It’s hard to dispute painter Jennifer Nehrbass’s assertion that, from a female point of view, the popular story of the European exploration of the West doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s not just that women’s essential roles, and even their presence, are largely written out of that […]
In viewing photographs, we tend to look right through or past the photo itself, with all its elaborate technical background information, and imagine we are seeing the object in the picture as if it were actually present. In her piece “Poised Compression,” Rosa Barba short-circuits that impulse by […]
Leonardo da Vinci taught that a portrait should begin with the skeleton, to which muscles, flesh, and if appropriate, clothing would be added. The point was to be aware of the presence within the subject of those parts that gave form to the person: the form that became […]
Artworks are vessels of mystery. How could they not be when no one really knows where they come from or how they get here? Even so, there’s an uncommon amount of mystery in the front gallery at BDAC this month. Artist Antra Sinha and musician Megan Simper have […]
It’s been half a century since artists began to see themselves as kin to the legendary canaries in the coal mine, those storied animals that gave the alarm when workplace environments deteriorated to the point where the workers’ lives were endangered. Here in Utah, where there are many […]
When she talks about her painting, Julie Berry calls it “an adventure,” which is a pleasure to hear. Art is properly always an adventure, in the sense that the real artist begins with the modesty to admit she doesn’t know and can’t always control where she will end […]
Medieval Europe had to get by without many of the skills that had made the classical world so splendid. They couldn’t cast metal like the Greeks and Romans: Emperor Charlemagne’s portrait on horseback was a successful bronze casting, but it fits neatly on a desktop. They could build […]
A visitor from another state coming to Utah at the turn of the millennium could not have missed the remarkable vitality of the arts throughout the region and across the range of media. Here, seemingly everyone has at least a little bit of musical skill and practice, with […]
It’s always worthwhile to keep an eye out for new places to see art, but lately in Utah it’s become vital. Independent galleries come and go, but lately our public galleries have become endangered. The Rio and Alice, each in its own way a wonderful place to see […]
Even though some galleries report selling more art online than in person, exhibitions remain important to artists, patrons, and dealers. The opportunities offered most artists are still either the one- or two-person version, where artists can exhibit in depth, or the group show, where they typically have one […]
I wanted to know about the fish. As Colour Maisch interviewed artist Fay Ku before an overflow crowd, they stood before two drawings of enormous-looking, strange fish. All the other drawings were of human figures, sometimes on horseback. But the monstrous fish stood apart. Entering Material, the combination […]
In 2007, I learned that a former writing student of mine was actually a visual arts major. I learned this when Karen Sorenson unexpectedly produced the most remarkable work of art that anyone, student or faculty, would exhibit in my decade at Snow College. While No One is […]
Artists in Salt Lake City should be familiar with Utah’s sophisticated, local print community. The Saltgrass collective, for example, not only promotes the highest standards of the art, but brings guest artists in from across the global printmaking community. What may be less known, at least to non-specialists, […]
From across the gallery, Noah Eikens’ “Out of Order” presents a puzzle: is this a scale model, a small machine, or maybe a toy? From out of two nested bowls that could have come from a kitchen emerges a tangle of black pipe. It looks kind of like […]
The various laboratories and classrooms of Westminster University’s Meldrum Science Center are where the enterprise of science is both conducted and handed down to the next generation. These rooms are arranged around the rectangular perimeter of the Center, forming squared rings that are stacked into four stories that […]
Tony Smith and Sam Wilson—both men had other names they rarely or never used—died at almost the same time a year ago. The University of Utah, where they taught during what history will almost certainly record as its greatest half century, has mounted a too-brief, two-master exhibition of […]
Back in the days when cameras were simple machines and photographers were expected to make all their own decisions, film came with instructions for how to set the exposure, depending on the ambient light. One of the trickiest conditions was known as “Cloudy Bright,” which meant a hazy […]
