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.
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 […]
A beguiling minimalist interpretation of a full moon hanging over a New Mexico mesa, kachina butterfly sculptures with a Henry Moore sensibility, edgy digital signage that says things along the lines of “His Breath Smelled Like Guacamole and Tequila” —how can you possibly miss this generational show of […]
It would be helpful if words could capture the sequence of impressions created by a first encounter with Confetti and Distress, Honey and Suspicion. We know what to expect with paintings and sculpture, and increasingly now with performance, installation, video—all the newer media that have become familiar […]
The Utah Division of Arts & Museum’s annual Design Arts Utah show proves once again the continued growth of talent and ingenuity in Utah. Collected among the juried designers we find students with an eye on the future and established creatives who continue to push boundaries and exercise […]
In a vintage wisecrack, Ad Reinhardt once defined a sculpture as “something you bump into when you back up to look at a painting.” Gallery owner Thomas J. Howa knows the sentiment, but disagrees. Himself a painter, Howa doesn’t see how showcasing two artists in the same medium […]
Artists Tyler Willmore and Molly O’Mara, who are showing at UTah Artist Hands Gallery for the upcoming Salt Lake Gallery Stroll, both use nature to their advantage. Willmore expands the landscape, wrapping his paintings in written texts that provide metaphorical context for personal exploration, while O’Mara strips down […]
