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.
Just inside the gallery door, a single painting stops those entering and announces that what waits beyond may be different than a lifetime of viewing has led them to expect. Two pre-adolescent girls with snarling mouths and hands like claws seem poised to attack each other. Only the […]
As part of NCECA, the Visual Arts Institute hosts Altar/Alter, a group show that explores themes of transformation, ritual, human experience and the evolving nature of belief. The exhibition dances between the sacred and the playful, inviting viewers to reconsider objects, materials and personal meaning. At its core, […]
Stephen Wolochowicz’s work, featured in one of several shows at the Visual Arts Institute as part of NCECA, invites viewers into a world of carefully orchestrated ambiguity. His sculptures, or “torps,” as he calls them, are purposefully vague, hovering between industrial relic, sci-fi artifact, and playful contraption. Each […]
What could be more sustainable than ceramics, right? Feldspar, the main component of clay, constitutes 60 percent of the earth’s crust. Water covers 70 percent of the earth’s surface (admittedly, most of it has salt). We’re not likely to run out of either anytime soon. Firing? Ok, that’s […]
When Shiya Zeng was invited by NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) to highlight her work for the Cultivating Community series, a striking absence became clear — the underrepresentation of queer ceramicists of color in Utah. This absence, Zeng observed, wasn’t due to a lack […]
There’s only one thing more enjoyable for an arts writer than discovering a fresh young artist (usually just escaped from one or another splendid college program and shyly showing off inventions they’ve been misled to expect no one will be thrilled by)—that even greater, if only because less […]
At Phillips Gallery, as part of the NCECA Conference, Strike While the Iron is Hot showcases the work of Utah State University graduate students and faculty members, offering a dynamic and cohesive exploration of clay as both a functional medium and sculptural language. The exhibition is a testament […]
“As a sculptor, my concern is for form,” Larry Elsner wrote in 1977, “a maddening search for the unity of space and mass.” An Idaho native and longtime Utah State University (USU) professor, Elsner would always choose form over function, regardless of the medium in which he was […]
New Sol LeWitt murals keep going up almost 20 years after his death. They’re new and yet old, some of the initial conceptions dating back to 1968. That’s when LeWitt first conceived of what are known as “wall drawings,” though they often take the form of massive wall […]
Since she assumed the role of Executive Director, Laura Allred Hurtado, along with her eight-member staff and accommodating docents, has seen to it that the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art’s six galleries present an unbroken parade of unforgettable exhibitions. While there’s no sign of flagging anywhere in the […]
At the entrance of the Kimball Art Center, visitors are greeted by a large wall painted in a warm terracotta tone, which could be a nod to the foundational material of their current exhibition: clay. Curated by the Kimball’s Nancy Stoaks and staged in conjunction with The National […]
Two of art’s more technically challenging and aesthetically eloquent media are currently getting an unusual level of attention in local galleries. Under the influence of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, nearly every gallery in Utah is showing ceramic art sometime in March, a bounty […]
There’s a moment in Gandhi where an Englishman asks the film’s hero what a sympathetic member of the ruling class can do to help those who are struggling (for equity, diversity, access, inclusion, and respect), whereupon Gandhi tells him to go home and work on behalf of his […]
Whether one is drawn to the storytelling aspect of Joe Brubaker’s figures or the weightless elegance of Heather Zusman’s abstract sculptures, the works now at Julie Nester Gallery will undoubtedly spark conversation, both with others and within oneself. In the gallery’s beautifully lit space, enhanced by both natural […]
When, at the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition, French painter Marcel Duchamp hung 1,200 empty coal sacks from the ceiling of a windowless gallery lit by a single light bulb, then handed out flashlights at the door so visitors could find their own way through the art, this most […]
Pursuing quilting as a hobby outside of her traditional mediums of drawing and printmaking, Mary Toscano was in the middle of making a quilt when Andrew Rease Shaw, her husband and a professional musician, recognized the shapes she was working with as the waveforms of a Low Frequency […]
Under the right circumstances, the entrance to an exhibition can be a portal to another reality. With good art, though, that strange land will soon reveal itself to be the one the audience sought briefly to escape, only transformed. Eugene Ofori Agyei, one of ten ceramic sculptors being […]
Showing at 15th Street Gallery until March 14, the works of Douglas Smith and John Collins contrast with each other, the former exploring the bounds of abstraction and title while the latter explores—literally—the forests and rockscapes of Utah in figurative displays of changing light. They offer viewers a […]
