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 the foreground of “I Dreamt I Could Help You,” a large oil and acrylic painting on canvas by Eli Kauffman, two young persons confront each other through the open, driver’s side window of a bright, flame red car. We see the driver through a spiderweb of cracks […]
These must be some of the least iconic images of Utah ever to grace the walls of the State Capitol building. In place of, say, that monument to eons of slow erosion, Delicate Arch, an isolated monolith standing in a virtual sea of bare red rock, “Azure Stream” […]
In response to the historical challenge presented by the camera, painters have sought, and found, ways to surpass the limits of photography by doing things with paint that far exceed anything the camera can do. But since most of the art we see still comes to us through […]
Art is play. It’s also work, hard work: work so challenging many people assume they can’t do it. But that’s because they think it’s nothing but work. Better they thought it was play. To be sure, Mike Whiting works very hard on his art. The precision demanded by […]
I met Devanie Johnson on location, during the shooting of the feature documentary Tomb of Joseph. That was a year ago — June, 2021 — in historic Nauvoo, Illinois. Devanie was on the crew, taking still photographs. She shot all her photos with an iPhone, mostly using an app called Hipstamatic that transformed the photos to look like tintypes from the mid nineteenth century.
As remarkable as the fiber art works of Judith Scott are in person, it adds another dimension to see her at work in the short film, Judith Scott in the Studio, that plays in rotation with five other short films in the Kimball galleries video space. Here there […]
Steve Creson’s Gallery Exhibit at the Holladay Library reflects the artist’s diverse interests across a few unique sets of works. The roots of the Black Arrow Project (BAP), as traced in an accompanying artist’s statement, point to the intriguingly circuitous route from inspiration to realization. Born of a […]
When they hear the word “desert,” most people think of oceans of sand, dunes like waves following each other into the distance. In Utah, we know better: most of the world’s deserts, including ours, have little or no sand to see. Instead, they are made of rock. Bedrock […]
There are three levels at work in Bea Hurd’s It Was Their Third Cup of Coffee. At the bottom is physiology: the human body and the human brain, each in competition for the same resources. It’s well known that while the brain makes up only 2% of body […]
In this identity-conscious age, people have found many new ways to identify themselves. You may find yourself in all sorts of cultural activities. Each of the seven artists participating in Modern West Fine Arts’ current exploration of the theme of identity, titled You May Find Yourself, has a […]
Author, master printer, multimedia artist and Weber State professor, Susan Makov was among the first artists to sound a warning about the plight of the natural environment, depicting things in her prints like birds beset by the trashy artifacts of human overpopulation. It fact, she arrived so early […]
Nothing’s more full of promise than a prop room in a theater, and that’s what this corner of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art feels like, filled with Mitsu Salmon’s paintings on raw muslin. All six of Salmon’s big paintings (approximately 4 x 5 feet) are happy explosions […]
With an unknown number works of art accepted, the Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art — far and away the exemplary annual show, at the definitive repository of homegrown Utah art and artists — defies imagination. Because it occupies almost the entire main floor, flowing from […]
A beautiful wooden boat sits on clear, deep, blue water against a background of rugged mountains. The vibrant, blue sky is only interrupted by fluffy rolling clouds and the boat’s colorful but simple design is reflected in the water. At the bottom of the boat is a turquoise […]
“Nephi taught that by clinging to the word of God we would be able to avoid temptation and not lose our way in darkness” – Joseph B. Wirthlin “The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unable to hear anything new.” – Pema Chodron These two […]
“I could not do this in my head,” Jerrin Wagstaff says as he passes an open palm over “Ultrascape #21,” the latest of his new paintings. This is a man who has spent half his life doing something most people rarely do, which is to create pictures of […]
Stories, history, and culture weave themselves into the quilts currently on display at the UMFA’s Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts. Organized by Luke Kelly, the museum’s associate curator of collections, and Katie Seastrand, coordinator of school and teacher programs, the exhibition of 18 quilts, comprising early traditional […]
My neighbor, Eduardo Alvarez, asked my husband and me to come by and give him input regarding his work for 0 Tolerance, his show at Provo’s Writ & Vision gallery. I had spoken with Ed at church regarding Matthew Barney, Cindy Sherman, Gaudí, and Marina Abramovic (rare subjects […]
Walking into the small gallery at the Bountiful Davis Art Center where Paper Bandages is installed feels like departing on a road trip so early in the day that it’s still dark out. Silhouettes and familiar shapes can be made out at first, but as inky darkness gradually […]
