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.
I wanted to know about the fish. As Colour Maisch interviewed artist Fay Ku before an overflow crowd, they stood before two drawings of enormous-looking, strange fish. All the other drawings were of human figures, sometimes on horseback. But the monstrous fish stood apart. Entering Material, the combination […]
In 2007, I learned that a former writing student of mine was actually a visual arts major. I learned this when Karen Sorenson unexpectedly produced the most remarkable work of art that anyone, student or faculty, would exhibit in my decade at Snow College. While No One is […]
Artists in Salt Lake City should be familiar with Utah’s sophisticated, local print community. The Saltgrass collective, for example, not only promotes the highest standards of the art, but brings guest artists in from across the global printmaking community. What may be less known, at least to non-specialists, […]
By the time the American republic began striding across the world stage toward empire, first as an economic and then as a military behemoth, Impressionism had become varnished with a solid coat of respectability—which explains why the United States has so many fine collections of impressionist works, from […]
From across the gallery, Noah Eikens’ “Out of Order” presents a puzzle: is this a scale model, a small machine, or maybe a toy? From out of two nested bowls that could have come from a kitchen emerges a tangle of black pipe. It looks kind of like […]
The various laboratories and classrooms of Westminster University’s Meldrum Science Center are where the enterprise of science is both conducted and handed down to the next generation. These rooms are arranged around the rectangular perimeter of the Center, forming squared rings that are stacked into four stories that […]
Tony Smith and Sam Wilson—both men had other names they rarely or never used—died at almost the same time a year ago. The University of Utah, where they taught during what history will almost certainly record as its greatest half century, has mounted a too-brief, two-master exhibition of […]
Back in the days when cameras were simple machines and photographers were expected to make all their own decisions, film came with instructions for how to set the exposure, depending on the ambient light. One of the trickiest conditions was known as “Cloudy Bright,” which meant a hazy […]
No one work of art can “say it all,” but the poster image for Landscape and Identity tells the story that led Jason Lanegan to once again gather a group of artists whose works address some concern they share with him. Unlike curators who start from a notion […]
You may have seen Steve D. Stones’ work at the Ogden Farmers Market: the flaming Barneys and fish-headed Edwardians alongside video game icons like Pikachu and Mario hanging out in trippy, offbeat worlds, all tangled up with Halloween masks and comic book chaos. Stones’ art is a mashup […]
Nancy Steele-Makasci shares the Front Gallery at Finch Lane with Marcus Vincent in a group show titled Losing Ground. Their work is introduced by one of the longest statements I’ve ever seen on a gallery wall, which makes among the most complete summaries I’ve yet seen concerning the […]
There are some very colorful artists’ books at Finch Lane this month, but two in particular stand out for their bold use of red, white and … black. This trio falls just shy of the colors of the American Flag, the artist’s point likely being that her subjects […]
I have noticed that people are very fond of views out of windows which show the window in the picture. I think the idea that the picture itself is a kind of window, that the view comes readily framed, is part of it. – Peter Campbell, British artist […]
In a composition that fills the entire 15 by 15-inch surface with detail, we see a stern-faced man, holding a pistol and festooned with bandoleers, surrounded by a mixture of beautiful women, an intimidating rooster with wings outstretched, and a menacing clown—all rendered in fine, meticulous line work. […]
Throughout history, artists in every medium have crafted monuments to those killed in wars, but the 20th century challenged not only their adequacy, but their right to do so. The critic most often cited, Theodore Adorno, summing up all art as poetry, wrote that after Auschwitz, there can […]
Entering the gallery, I am greeted by five wooden pedestals of varying heights, each supporting dried lavender. The subtle fragrance permeates the air, though not as strongly as I might have expected, relying more on the memory of its scent. It immediately pulls me inward, evoking a sense […]
“I could do that in five minutes.” It’s a common refrain, frequently and flippantly said, usually while looking at a Pollock-esque paint splatter worth an amount north of your mortgage, but, really, it’s said of any kind of modern art. Which is unfair, because “modern art” can mean […]
When June Harwood moved to Los Angeles in the mid 1950s, she found a fertile environment for her own artistic interests in the Hard-Edge movement then taking shape. She became friends with several artists, including Lorser Feitelson and Helen Lundeberg, who were developing a new, reduced, classic style […]
Most of “The Sound of Many Books” is taken up by the wall of tomes: going on five shelves of them, no two the same, the gaps between them like missing teeth that testify to regular use. This is an avid reader’s library. Who that reader may be […]
