“Lincoln Park Arboretum,” one of eight multi-part and five single-panel paintings at Phillips Gallery, sets up a paradigm and writes subtext for all 13 paintings. The celebrated arboretum was presumably the focus of a visit to Seattle by both Joseph and Melinda Ostraff, she in her role as […]
Ellen Meloy combines the contemplative life of meditation with being fully engaged in nature: I no longer want to know the names of things. I do not care if I am mute or it my tongue is useless for everything but the taste of salt. The verbal map […]
The homey domestic character of Finch Lane Gallery, with its fireplace and wall of windows, contributes to the feeling that the people Aïsha Lehmann’s presents are our hosts: they’ve invited artist and audience to join them in a uniquely civilized gathering. Surrounded by their colorful, intricate wallpapers, coordinated […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
In 1951, Ernest Hemingway began an adventure story by disguising himself as a painter. Islands in the Stream wasn’t finished (or titled that) until 1971, a decade after Hemingway’s suicide. It wasn’t one of his small handful of good books, though the film — in which the painter […]
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 — […]
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 — […]
A mola is a hand-assembled textile conceived and made by the Guna people of Panama, in Central America, and Colombia, in South America. These vividly colorful, highly geometric, stylized plant and animal portraits are a popular trade item, and discerning travelers to the Guna’s homelands study, purchase, collect, […]
A drive — or better yet, a stroll — through the South Salt Lake City neighborhood just south of downtown, along Main Street, will treat the observant eye to mural after mural from one building to the next. Natural scenery has returned to this commercial district in the […]
“This is not safe,” is a caution we should attend to, but might feel we can overlook. “This is not safe, and it can’t be made safe” is another matter. A threat that cannot be neutralized is a threat indeed. In 1940, during the lull in the storm […]
