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.
Among my favorite qualities in art, two perennial activities stand out. One is drawing, an essential human activity that too often goes entirely under-appreciated, thought of as nothing more than the practiced trick of outlining visible forms. The fact that computers, with their mind-boggling computational powers, cannot recognize […]
On a wall edging a Bogotá, Colombia, street, music and theater posters vie with fight cards and bullfight notices pasted cheek-by-jowl to a rough, stucco wall. Over them are stenciled images of balaclava-clad guerrillas and the scrawled brigade name, M19, alternating with random graffiti, the surface peeling open […]
“Patterns of Resistance,” the title piece of UMOCA’s latest foray into “forward-thinking art” is a very large, intricate painting in blue and gray. In the midst of imposing space, created by joining two of what were probably the largest sheets of paper the artist could find, it depicts […]
A triangle on top of a rectangle: it’s an easily recognizable symbol, a complex form in the repertoire of millions of preliterate children making sense of their world with paper and crayon; and it’s a shape ubiquitous in a major exhibition now at Brigham Young University’s Museum of […]
If you’ve watched Darryl Erdmann’s career over the years, you may have come to suspect that there’s a good dose of the frustrated sculptor in this consummate painter. By incorporating found and constructed elements in some of his works, Erdmann has at times branched out into the physically […]
In today’s heterogeneous world of art, there are, generally speaking, two fundamental vehicles for connecting with a work: the emotional and the conceptual. The two create structures of meaning and the basis for fundamental interpretation. As the viewer comes to understand a work, an emotional response is as […]
Glass, like painting, sculpture, or any other art medium, flourishes in a variety of techniques. Just as an artist can paint in oil, acrylic, watercolor, with spray paint and stencils, or any number of other innovations, and just as a sculptor can build up clay to be cast […]
On a partition amid the downstairs gallery of the Harrison Museum in Logan hang three hand-woven Hopi plaques, or flat dishes. The backwards-F motif of the central disc repeats six times, as if rotating rapidly around its center. To the left, a woven black-and-white pattern suggests a hoop, […]
Paper airplanes are a recurring motif in Kendra Fehr’s current show at Art Access Gallery: lying in a farm field a woman reaches her hand out toward a white paper airplane that sails away toward a stormy sky; a woman dances on an expansive ground, holding strings that […]
A tree, with its trunk and ever-expanding branches, is composed of lines, but there is no regularity to them: they are a natural system of creation with a beauty and structure of their own, speaking to their innate essence. Certain artists are like this: they honestly express the […]
A small oil, less than a foot square, says a lot about the man who painted it. Juan Pablo Gasca, who was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, but has made his home in the United States since 1998, calls it “What Do You See?” The title is no joke; […]
For three months, from Sept.12 until Dec.12, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, on the campus of Utah State University in Logan, will be showing more than 50 superb examples of Aboriginal art by 33 artists, who together span the history of indigenous Australian painting. In seven […]
Artist Zachary Franzoni is influenced by, intrigued by, motivated by, compelled by, and torn by urbanity, which, in a self-reflective, contemplative way, results as the finished product of his art. Being from Detroit, and now residing in Salt Lake City, the artist has a longtime attraction with the […]
Three Salt Lake City galleries are currently showing still life paintings: one-person shows at Phillips Gallery and Charley Hafen, and a group show at Slusser Gallery. All of them close soon, but are definitely worth taking the time to see. We spoke with a couple of the artists […]
Contemporary art is not your thing. So, when you visit the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, make your way up the broad staircase and spot the colored plastic bottles and piles of sand that “pass for art” in the Phyllis Cannon Wattis Gallery, you immediately hang a hard […]
One of the unique opportunities found within the arts is the ability to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated objects, methods, and concepts. Chad Farnes’ work makes an effort to bring all three to the forefront in his presentation of Tape•ography, a collection of landscapes created using various […]
When 15 Bytes first encountered Casey Jex Smith almost a decade ago, he seemed exactly the sort of artist the world craves and Utah schools, almost alone in academe, excel in producing. At the premier U.S. art schools, from Yale to the RISD (the proximity of Yale to […]
A street car leaves the station and moves steadily toward the picture plane, bathed in light and shadow on Salt Lake City’s busy Main Street. A richly-hued autumnal scene is set ablaze in greens, reds, burnt oranges and yellows, as the form of a tree is illuminated […]
We Americans like our outlaws. Jesse James, John Dillinger, Butch and Sundance, Bonnie and Clyde — these figures fascinate more than they repel. They emerge as folk heroes during times of national conflict, economic struggles and political strife. We call them outlaws rather than criminals, and they […]
