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.
After a game of cribbage and a glass or two of Cointreau, my grandfather was apt to rise and recite from “As You Like It”: And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in […]
If somehow the primal essences of cult horror movies, ‘80s arcade games, abandoned amusement parks, and pulp sci-fi magazines were smashed together, Elmer Presslee’s art might have been fused from the resulting debris. Although many elements feel familiar—callbacks to subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s—Presslee’s style is so […]
Albedo | Nigredo , the collaborative exhibit by Colour Maisch and Gary Vlasic at Finch Lane Gallery, takes an attentive sculptural approach to exploring the mystical way that everyday materials are transformed by artists’ creative processes and the unique environment of gallery space. The gallery creates a space […]
All of us — well, most of us — have become conscientious recyclers, making sure to set aside our plastic bottles and aluminum cans so they can be turned into bicycles, or our cardboard and paper products so they can, well, be turned back into paper and cardboard. […]
What does one say about abstract art? It neither depicts a scene nor tells a story. It does not reference, investigate, or negotiate — or any number of the vague, Latinate verbs endemic to curatorial statements these days— anything. It is, in a term which has been largely […]
What do a rusty sewer grate, “Llama Crossing” street sign, rabbit, and a metal screen door have in common? On the surface, not much. Aside from the llama-crossing sign, these are all ordinary things anyone might see in a neighborhood or while out for a drive in the […]
Woven fiber encompasses both the mundane and the most sacred, technique intermingled with ritual. It is one of the most ancient and most common art forms in cultures the world over, yet, perhaps because of its subtlety, is rarely examined in the setting of a contemporary art […]
“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” – Joni Mitchell The idea of paradise is about as slippery as the idea of landscape: no two are exactly alike. They look different to each of us, smell different, imbued with cultural constructs fashioned from […]
You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.– Jim Rohn “A while ago I found myself in a ‘painting rut,’” says Layton artist Terrece Beesley. Instead of staying in that rut, the artist decided to get experimental with her usual style. “I […]
The untitled photographs in Willy Littig’s exhibit Vecinos wander across the walls of Mestizo Gallery like humble pilgrims. Dressed in understated, neat frames, they appear unburdened by worldly pretensions, as if they are on their way to ascetic enlightenment. Littig captured these images on his recent walking pilgrimage […]
In the deep shade of canopies that flutter like leafy parasols above South Temple’s historic mansions, the Alice Gallery, home to the State of Utah Fine Art Collection, displays Downy Doxey-Marshall’s newest show /klōTH/. If you’ve ever wondered how to describe the upside-down letters and slashes that follow […]
“Lift not the painted veil which those who live Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there, And it but mimic all we would believe With colours idly spread…” Percy Bysshe Shelley In part, Shelley’s sonnet “Lift not the painted veil” is about casting fake appearance, putting up […]
When Walter Askin was a child, he gravitated to the small roses on the wallpaper in his childhood home—but only because the pattern inspired him to draw small boats, figures, and other objects inside the roses. After his mother expressed her ire over Walter’s decorating efforts, he realized […]
The mixed-media installation in the Gittins Gallery at the University of Utah transports you to a place, possibly from your childhood, where there was beauty and magic in the leaves and branches of your own backyard or a secret hideaway in the woods. It reminds you of […]
It’s not enough to paint well. Any artist, no matter how talented with pencil or brush, must also find a subject, a message for their medium. Holly Cobb, an MFA candidate at the University of Utah, has found hers in food. Cobb’s interest is not in the food […]
Keith Beard has begun a journey into the unknown with the opening of his gallery “Miri” in South Salt Lake. This month’s exhibition is Beard’s own MFA exhibit, a show that explores the myths of the unknown and the masks we don that can be both friend and […]
Intense, saturated color, often painted on single-woven surfaces. Seemingly tribal patterns: perhaps Australian Outback, American Indian or Celtic in origin? Dimensional forms created by double-weaving on a hand loom. John Hess is a master of what he does and his show at The Gallery at Library Square, The […]
For a graveyard, the Salt Lake City Cemetery teems with life. Covering 120 acres and about 10 miles of paved road, the largest city-operated cemetery in the country is home to a varied and plentiful array of flora and fauna. Not far from the city center is a […]
Michael Ryan Handley and Cara Depain, native son and daughter of Utah, returned to the state this month for solo exhibitions at CUAC, in Salt Lake City. Handley has been living in Philadelphia and New York City after finishing an MFA at Yale, and Despain has been working […]
