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.
A stroll to FICE Gallery and Boutique offers the observant visitor a live experience of historical Utah, albeit not so much the “Wild West” of fantasy as the gritty, urban jungle of black-and-white Noir films from the 1930s. This downtown neighborhood is a rare survivor of a lost […]
The wind was howling, but people were talking about the art, not the weather, at Maureen O’Hara Ure’s packed opening on Friday evening at Phillips, her longtime gallery, where she’s presenting the second set of mixed-media panels she began with on-site sketches while traveling through Spain in 2022 […]
The paintings Linnie Brown is currently showing at ‘A’ Gallery bring to mind transparency as a visual fact, but also as a concept. Her layered images more than anything recall the cinematic lap dissolve, in which as one scene fades out, instead of the screen going dark, then […]
The picnic table anchors this installation. It grounds the floating veils and sky-yearning columns that dominate the space, suggesting a narrative without ever explicitly revealing it. In this large-scale, site-specific installation, Gail Grinnell has transformed Weber State University’s Shaw Gallery into a reflective space that resonates with the […]
Her name may be a bit superfluous: surely no one would question that Laura Wilson is sharp as well as Sharp—sharper than many of us who write about her. Calling her recent body of work “Chiasma” revealed her to be acquainted with the latest genetic science, which is […]
Downy Doxey-Marshall must be one of the most autobiographical painters on the scene today. She’s well aware of this quality, which is deliberate, and speaks of it not only in her conversation, but in her gallery statements. The most recent of those accompanies Bloom, her exhibition of 13 […]
The relationship of success and freedom is anything but simple. Successful artists, to take one example, often complain that their work sells only so long as they repeat a winning formula, and they may openly pine for their days of obscurity, when they could follow their imaginations freely. […]
The growing number of pottery studios in Salt Lake and Utah counties suggests an uptick in ceramics interest in the area. Sadly, an accompanying expansion in venues to enjoy and discover the very best the medium has to offer has yet to manifest—at least not in these locales. […]
The early 20th century was a period of rapid innovation in Western art, with artists seeking to break free from the representational shackles of the past. In the scrum of early modern painting that was Paris, Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890–1973) was one of the few Americans who stood out, […]
The half-dozen large, brilliantly mis-colored images by Diane Tuft currently on view, mostly at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) but at least one at Modern West, could almost be Color Field paintings, if they didn’t contain so many photographic hints and clues. There’s another, also at […]
The abstract paintings of Los Angeles artist Audra Weaser, now on exhibit at Park City’s Julie Nester Gallery, bring to life an interplay of introspection and the subtle dance of nature. Due to a blending of acrylics and metallic elements, the dozen canvases shimmer with an internal light, […]
There is one portrait figure by Irene Rampton that stands out at Phillips Gallery. “Mom and Me Out On the Town” differs in the way it observes not the unique look of a sole figure, but includes two women who are as noteworthy for their similarities as for […]
Egyptians, Romans, and Europeans all painted landscapes in order to simulate perfect nature in their homes throughout the year, or even for eternity. During the reign of Britain’s Queen Victoria, the invention of the greenhouse made it possible to introduce the public to galleries filled with exotic, actually […]
Along with form and content, composition and dynamics, color is one of the expressive building blocks of art. But color can also be as elemental and essential as those stand-ins for truth: Black and White. At the Eccles Art Center in Ogden, the 18th Annual Black and White […]
Above the steel stairway that connects the upper and lower galleries at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, for the duration of the current exhibition, a large monitor displays, in a continuous loop, recent satellite images of Great Salt Lake by UMOCA preparator Jeff Griffin. Watching the lake’s […]
There are things in life that are predictable, normalcy that we can expect, bringing security in the ordinary. Dirt, for example, is often, quite literally, below our notice. It is a guarantee of firmness beneath our feet, allowing us to step with little thought or worry. In Hózhó […]
Among the more persistent and valid criticisms thrown at creators, critics, curators, and collectors of the art world alike is this: Your art is not for anyone except yourselves. Blustering indignation aside, the message stings because, in some cases, maybe even many, it’s true. Artworks abstracted beyond all […]
