Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
Al Denyer came here from England, a place celebrated for its paradigmatic topography: hills and dales, lakes and rivers, cliffs and footpaths. Since she departed that small country — physically for the expanses of Utah and cognitively for even larger landscapes, like the Amazon rain forest — her […]
Paige Anderson’s paintings are a trip into high order. All is arranged, undone, arranged again. In “A Map of Salt and Stars” and “Heavens Clothed in Earthly Vestments” pointed star-shapes repeat very, very methodically, but with squinting shimmer-gleam, like the modulated light emanating from a crop of night […]
If ever a group of paintings of trees could bring you close to tears, it might be these paintings by Silas Thompson, in his new show, The Hidden Forest. Thompson, still a young painter, is a sort of forest spy/messenger. One who can be trusted, because he resists […]
Decades before the Covid pandemic, when Climate Change was a theory only scientists and those who value their work accepted as truth, artists were already calling themselves “canaries in the coal mine.” There were past centuries, when little was understood about air quality and the effects of gasses like carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide on the atmosphere and beyond, when miners took caged canaries down with them. Even if the miners felt fine, if the far more sensitive canary lost consciousness, it meant the air was bad and those digging were in danger.
There is an art to science, and science in art; the two are not enemies, but different aspects of the whole. — Isaac Asimov Collaboration is at the heart of Granary Arts’ current exhibit, Evaporated: Explorations in Art, Science, and Salt. Conceived and executed by visual artist Wendy […]
Chris Peterson (@chrispetersonstudio) is at work on a mural on the south side of the Cameron Wellness Center, which will be visible in all its visual splendor from the parking lot of the United States Post Office at 1953 South 1100 East. The mural features peacocks, which have […]
The puzzle throb in the work by painter Steven Stradley at “A” Gallery is asking for solution, and, at the same time, for no solution but gravity. You feel drop from North to South, continual ambitious crossing from East to West. And back. And, unraveledness, exasperation. Through them […]
Sixteen months ago, art galleries were among the social venues that shut down in the face of the Covid pandemic. Now they’re successfully reopening, primarily for small or solo shows. More challenging is a survey, like Face of Utah Sculpture, now in its 17th edition, which presents logistic […]
Aside from Greg Ragland’s many outdoor installations in several states is a series of intimate, hyperrealistic portraits of animals, many but not all of them birds. He depicts them among highly abstracted fragments of their natural environments that may initially appear as gestural, almost calligraphic swirls of rich […]
Edward Bateman’s latest work makes manifest the adage that one can create mountains out of molehills — molehills made from little bits of plastic and representing real-life Utah mountains. The artist provides small models of his molehills cum mountains (or is it the reverse?) at Phillips Gallery, where a fine […]
Hadley Rampton, who paints en plein air accompanied by her dog, Phoebe, primarily in the Rocky Mountain wilderness she loves but also (sans dog) in town squares and picturesque alleyways around the world, learned a couple new lessons about (and from) Utah’s scenic backcountry during the Pandemic: that […]
Not every artist gets to see herself become the solo subject of a television documentary, let alone one that takes a retrospective look over her art and its critical reception by one of the nation’s best-known and most-cited journalist-critics. But then Jean Lowe is not just any artist, […]
The semicircular handle of a wicker basket frames the angelic face of a young woman, which is doubled by reflection from the silvery surface of its contents. A pair of blue-gloved hands supports the basket’s bowl, while concentric pink ovals of satin and roses, a pink lace bow […]
News that one of the world’s most exciting landscape painters has moved to Utah, adding the Rockies and Wasatch mountains to an already stunning resumé, sounds a little like saying another ship full of coal has arrived in Newcastle. After all, no other paintable subject is more popular […]
June is Pride Month and a few galleries along the Wasatch Front are taking the opportunity to showcase the works of local LGBTQIA+ artists. One of these is Salt Lake City’s Urban Arts Gallery, located in the Gateway. The Gateway itself seems to be rebranding as a queer-friendly […]
Provo’s Writ & Vision is holding an exhibition to celebrate pride featuring the work of six local Utah County artists, some exhibiting for the first time. The works in Queer Expressions range from photography and painting to collage, with artists focusing on themes of identity, transition and individuality. […]
In a few weeks it will be ten years since Jorge Rojas first showed his art in Salt Lake City, bringing him to 15 Bytes’ attention and eventual inclusion in Utah’s 15. Since then, as one of the foremost arts activists in Utah, he has alternated between showing […]
Bea Hurd’s Devour Digest Devote and Lucy Fairchild’s Enveloping Calm awaken the carnal instinct of consumption and desire in a journey that resolves itself. The exhibitions bridge the material and spiritual worlds respectively, through independent journeys that divulge the viewer’s assumed self-indulgent narcissism. Hurd’s grotesque presentation of material is literal, reinforced by […]
It did seem too bad about the video. I mean, here’s this uber-intriguing show at UMOCA — joyful, absorbing, edgy, impactful, magical, riotous both in color and often also in mood — a superb conveyance of works-to-date by the genius Beat-origin artist and wordsmith, a professor of humanities […]
