Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
Crosses, again and again, appear in most of these paintings by just-returned-from-Chicago Art Institute Navajo artist Patrick Dean Hubbell. They’re referencing stars, say Modern West gallery assistants. Stars, they point out, appear again and again in Hubbell’s titles. But every small cross, and every large cross, in these […]
There is something fundamental that Darryl Erdmann has in common with his mixed-media artwork, “Divinations,” one of the dozen of his paintings currently on view at the 15th Street Gallery. Divinations are visions drawn from life, such as entrails read by priests of old. And just about everything […]
One woman points an accusatory finger. Another testifies, arm raised. A third pleads, hands clasped, fingers entwined. The fourth stands stoic and defiant, pained eyes gazing away. Words, written in red above each drawing of these women, combine to read, “ALL MOTHERS WERE SUMMONED WHEN HE CALLED OUT FOR HIS MAMA.” Ruby Chacón’s emotive and impactful “All Mothers” focuses on the strength of BIPOC mothers who have endured the loss of their children. The series of collages features the mothers of Trayvon Martin, who was shot by George Zimmerman in 2012, Mariee Juarez, a migrant who died in ICE detention in 2019, and Henny Scott, a teenager who went missing from the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in 2018. The fourth is Chacon’s own mother.
Helper is like a movie set, a town of moving, repeating stills: repeated rows of paintings; repeating storefronts. It is full of movie-set tropes, like the Balance Rock Eatery servers, daily dressed in identical red sateen dancing-hall dresses; or the rainbow-colored marquee at the Strand Theater; or Marilyn […]
In Claire Sherman’s “Waterfall,” a jet of water spills from a fern-covered rock overhead into a grotto of shaded shrubbery. The stone face display a variety of surface features: jagged in the foreground, smooth along the lip where polished by the rushing water, and cubical underneath the ledge […]
One thing that can probably be said with relative certainty about part-time Utah resident and full-time artist Cara Despain is that she’s not in it for the money. Nothing in her current outing at the Kimball in Park City says “Collectable.” Even the show’s “hood ornament” — […]
Brian Boulton is a man with the courage of his convictions. By this, I mean that, having chosen to work in either reclaimed or man-made materials and to produce non-representational sculpture, he’s resisted the temptation to slip in the occasional pretty bauble or a helpful similarity to some […]
Even though Rachel Henriksen and Carrie Everett sign their art works individually, they show them together, thereby demonstrating a common purpose. Their statement, signed by them both, reads rather like a research proposal: “to understand and process … the physical and emotional transformations associated with womanhood.” Considering how […]
Ever since history’s first public art gallery opened in the city offices — or Uffizi — of Florence in the 1580s, a tempest has raged in the teapot of art concerning what kind of signage should accompany a display. A minority has always detested those informative wall cards […]
One artist I can never get enough of is Alison Neville, so when I saw that she had curated a room full of art at BDAC, nothing could dissuade me: least of all the advance photos. The photos matter because the show in question, CreepyCute, contemplated a familiar, […]
From time to time an artist introduces a new material or technique, typically embedding it in a network of traditional, dependable approaches. In The Availability of Secret Information, Marc T. Wise blows away such caution with a plethora of stunning innovations, each a thrill to the eye […]
“WHO did THAT?” I ask, stopped cold by a large, just-hung abstract in rich, compelling colors – peaches, browns, grays, and a variety of blues and violets – hanging behind the front desk at Phillips Gallery. “That is a Bonnie Phillips,” replies Bonnie Phillips in a small voice.“It isn’t signed, but they tell me it is mine, […]
In the enigmatic “Nowhere On” the term “figure drawing” initially sounds ambitious: only the lower legs, from the knees to the feet, are drawn. Above them, a cloud of almost cubist marks could be anything at first, or nothing. In essence, then, the figure reads in reverse, from […]
Mi Vida – My Art, the Pilar Pobil retrospective at Weber State University’s Stewart Library, is appropriately named: as will be clear to anyone that visits the show, Pobil’s life and art are deeply and inextricably intertwined. Viewing Pobil’s work feels like a visual autobiography. She opens her mind, […]
Corinne Geertsen’s many-layered art images, which begin as photographs, are magic tricks. They contain ghosts of the photographed past, people wearing clothing time has almost forgotten — derby hats and waistcoats, huge hats covered with flowers, children in proper attire — people, largely, in awe of being photographed, […]
There’s one life-size, cast-bronze golfer in the middle of this gallery, and a mysterious cut-out of a doorway, which staff-only can enter, behind a counter. Which leads one to feel that a mysterious and dreamy, miniature game of golf is being played here, in/at Salt Lake City’s Brushworks […]
There are those who believe that Brian Kershisnik never changes: that from year to year he paints the same subjects in the same way. While they may be right about some of the details — the dogs, birds, fruit, the flames, the haloes, and the palm-sized bicycles — […]
Those who value the beauty of empty, open spaces on a canvas will find a warm welcome in the paintings of Leslie Duke, now on display at Salt Lake City’s 15th Street Gallery. Mainly still lifes of flowers and citrus, her works are vibrant and lively while also […]
The ancient Romans liked to build gardens next to their homes to open up space and provide vistas. Where that proved impractical, as in urban Rome, they painted those gardens on the walls instead. Even today, the House of Livia — wife of Augustus, the first emperor — […]
