Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
A triangle on top of a rectangle: it’s an easily recognizable symbol, a complex form in the repertoire of millions of preliterate children making sense of their world with paper and crayon; and it’s a shape ubiquitous in a major exhibition now at Brigham Young University’s Museum of […]
If you’ve watched Darryl Erdmann’s career over the years, you may have come to suspect that there’s a good dose of the frustrated sculptor in this consummate painter. By incorporating found and constructed elements in some of his works, Erdmann has at times branched out into the physically […]
In today’s heterogeneous world of art, there are, generally speaking, two fundamental vehicles for connecting with a work: the emotional and the conceptual. The two create structures of meaning and the basis for fundamental interpretation. As the viewer comes to understand a work, an emotional response is as […]
Commissioned to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 2016 formation of the National Park Service, the book is a joy to peruse. At a whopping 288 pages, this coffee-table-size tome brings the Grand Teton Range and Jackson Hole area to life in two dimensions. From “Trappers and Traders” to more contemporary works (by Poor Yorick’s Brad Slaugh, for one) it includes more than 375 paintings, drawings and photographs of the Tetons landscape and its wildlife covering over 200 years.
Glass, like painting, sculpture, or any other art medium, flourishes in a variety of techniques. Just as an artist can paint in oil, acrylic, watercolor, with spray paint and stencils, or any number of other innovations, and just as a sculptor can build up clay to be cast […]
On a partition amid the downstairs gallery of the Harrison Museum in Logan hang three hand-woven Hopi plaques, or flat dishes. The backwards-F motif of the central disc repeats six times, as if rotating rapidly around its center. To the left, a woven black-and-white pattern suggests a hoop, […]
Paper airplanes are a recurring motif in Kendra Fehr’s current show at Art Access Gallery: lying in a farm field a woman reaches her hand out toward a white paper airplane that sails away toward a stormy sky; a woman dances on an expansive ground, holding strings that […]
It’s decidedly not The Donald’s wall. This one was installed by 100 volunteers and painted by, among others, paid graffiti artists and Salt Lake Tribune editorial cartoonist Pat Bagley. It’s quite a project, quite a story, and more is to come. Surrounding a newly improved children’s playground at […]
Within almost exactly a week, Utah has lost two fabled artists. Each, coincidentally, had a controversial work installed at the Salt Lake City International Airport: Anna Campbell Bliss was able to revise hers to satisfy what she called “the Breast Patrol;” Trevor Southey, a gifted and influential artist […]
A tree, with its trunk and ever-expanding branches, is composed of lines, but there is no regularity to them: they are a natural system of creation with a beauty and structure of their own, speaking to their innate essence. Certain artists are like this: they honestly express the […]
A small oil, less than a foot square, says a lot about the man who painted it. Juan Pablo Gasca, who was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, but has made his home in the United States since 1998, calls it “What Do You See?” The title is no joke; […]
When she turned 90 in July, Anna Campbell Bliss was, as always, active. She had a show up at CUAC that she shared, as she did most everything, with her husband, Robert, and was hoping to begin new work soon at her west-side studio. I gave her a […]
It’s a common trope, the artist who tells you they began their career at an early age, attracting the accolade of adults when they were still preschoolers, or executing their first masterpiece on the dining room wall, to the—slightly proud—dismay of their parents. There was no such beginning […]
For three months, from Sept.12 until Dec.12, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, on the campus of Utah State University in Logan, will be showing more than 50 superb examples of Aboriginal art by 33 artists, who together span the history of indigenous Australian painting. In seven […]
Artist Zachary Franzoni is influenced by, intrigued by, motivated by, compelled by, and torn by urbanity, which, in a self-reflective, contemplative way, results as the finished product of his art. Being from Detroit, and now residing in Salt Lake City, the artist has a longtime attraction with the […]
John Kolb, owner of the Kayenta-based Wizard Stones, blends his fondness for the Murano craftsmen of Italy with a fascination of the night sky to create unique glassworks that are truly out of this world. Employing dichroic glass, quartz crystal for sparkle, and a propane torch that burns […]
Three Salt Lake City galleries are currently showing still life paintings: one-person shows at Phillips Gallery and Charley Hafen, and a group show at Slusser Gallery. All of them close soon, but are definitely worth taking the time to see. We spoke with a couple of the artists […]
Contemporary art is not your thing. So, when you visit the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, make your way up the broad staircase and spot the colored plastic bottles and piles of sand that “pass for art” in the Phyllis Cannon Wattis Gallery, you immediately hang a hard […]
One of the unique opportunities found within the arts is the ability to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated objects, methods, and concepts. Chad Farnes’ work makes an effort to bring all three to the forefront in his presentation of Tape•ography, a collection of landscapes created using various […]
