Utah Exhibition Reviews published in 15 Bytes, Utah’s art magazine, including reviews of local Utah artists, regional artists, group exhibitions and traveling exhibits of national and international artists.
It seems like every year rumors circulate that the Face of Utah Sculpture may have run its course and might be cancelled. Glass artist Dan Cummings, who founded the event 22 years ago and shepherded it through the COVID-19 shutdown six years ago, admits that he and folklorist […]
Roland Thompson breathes color into minimalism with exceptionally crafted painted aluminum works. The paintings are non-pictorial — no image, no story attached. Their straightforward outer shapes hold a spot on the wall that begs close examination. Their bold colors and patterns are at once reminiscent of something […]
It’s probably a good thing that so many sales galleries are going into smaller spaces and, especially, spaces with scaled-back rooms, hallways, and other narrow spaces. One reason is that this gives viewers a chance to see how well they work in similar spaces they may have at […]
Horses have inspired artists for millennia. From the mesmerizing silhouettes in the Panel of the Horses at the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc cave in southern France, to the dynamic Mycenaean frescoes of ancient Greece, to Deborah Butterfield’s widely recognized sculptural interpretations, the horse has remained a persistent muse across cultures […]
Meet the Fletchers, on view at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art through July 25, introduces visitors to three of the most important figures in 20th-century Utah art: Calvin Fletcher, Irene Fletcher, and their son Dale. Together, the exhibition argues, they embraced modern ideas and methods that […]
The late, great Philip Guston once said, “I’m a night painter, so when I come into the studio the next morning the delirium is over. I know I won’t remember the details, but I know I will remember the feeling of the whole thing.” Isn’t that the great […]
Lindey Carter’s large canvases anchor the upstairs space at Phillips Gallery this month. Scattered among Carter’s large pieces are smaller oils on panel by David Cassil. The two bodies of work share a register of muted atmosphere and restrained color close enough that, without prior knowledge of the […]
The downstairs gallery at Bountiful Davis Art Center hosts the staff group show — a fitting metaphor for what lies beneath the institution above. Paintings, pottery, sculptures, mixed media. Self-taught and art-school trained. The variety is a showcase of the different approaches that make this fine center of […]
Another year, another Springville Salon, another chance to reflect on the art scene in Utah. As the recently closed Salon 100 show at Springville demonstrated, the Salon has a storied past. Perhaps most importantly, its more than 100-year history illustrates Utah’s ongoing commitment to the arts, even during […]
In third grade, Tony Jacobsen built a diorama of the Grand Canyon. His school put it on display in the library, and Jacobsen found reasons to return to it—restroom pass, lunch break, any available detour—looking again, mentally revising. Others were fascinated as well. When he had talked to […]
Every two years, the Utah Cultural Celebration Center hosts the Wasatch Camera Club’s Utah Travels exhibition. The title is a bit misleading, since while many of the high quality photographs have been taken, as implied, in some of Utah’s most photogenic places, “Utah travels” could just as well […]
What the patriarchy has fabricated for women often stretches and pulls her in every direction. Be a mom, but have a career, but have hobbies, but be a good lover so you can be a good mother. Yet womanhood also uniquely holds the power to nurture life from […]
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 […]
“Open wide the floodgates / wash away extractors from the shore. / may we never again measure / this body by economic value. / may we count our blessings / by the flaps of wings. / may we be the ancestors who stepped / in the path of […]
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 […]
On a river trip, Bianca Velasquez used the solitary quiet of the desert float as a meditation on her current show’s topic. The water bugs caught her attention and a fellow mate on the trip—unbeknownst to her at the time, a wildlife biologist specializing in bears, well-versed in […]
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. […]
