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.
In Roger and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, Maria says that “when God closes a door, he opens a window,” alluding to the hope of new opportunities presented in the face of current obstacles. When an artist chooses to work from within a specific culture and experience, possibly […]
There are 11 paintings by Pablo Cruz-Ayala, collectively titled Intersections of an Immigrant, at Finch Lane Gallery and one at Salt Lake Community College, where it’s part of their 75th Anniversary Alumni Show. In them, Cruz-Ayala employs a wide variety of media, but the first impression they make […]
The Biblical Book of Genesis, with all its great visual tropes — the creation of all from nothing, division of light from dark, story of the Fall, and so on — has been enormously popular with artists at least since Medieval times. The third chapter begins with the […]
There’s not much to say about the Salt Lake Community College’s 75th Anniversary Alumni Show, currently open at the art gallery of the main campus on State Street. Not that there isn’t plenty to say about the 30 works it includes or the same number of artists who […]
When visitors enter the UMFA’s newest exhibition, Tatau: Marks of Polynesia, what appears to be a survey of Samoan tattoos quickly reveals itself to be an exploration of Fa’asāmoa — the Samoan way of life. This is because the two are inextricably linked. As recently as a generation […]
Will it matter to you to know that these winding, twisted orgies of positive and negative space, these three-dimensional doodles spiraling and folding onto each other, these rigid stacks of competing planes frozen in time and space, were made from old skateboards? It would explain some things, like […]
The soaring ceilings and commodious galleries of Ogden Contemporary Arts make an ideal environment for large-scale installations. Two simultaneous exhibitions on view right now prove the point. The staff at OCA, along with independent curator Kelly Carper, have brought in two artists who are well established in their […]
Quilting is rapidly moving from folk art to fine art and Sheryl Gillilan is deep into tiny stitches and fabric scraps. Though she continues her day job as executive director of the Holladay Arts Council (she will retire this fall after some six years of delivering diverse arts […]
In one photo, a man sits with one leg crossed over the other, the dark pants leg of his raised knee interrupting the solid white mass of the cape completely wrapping his torso. The barber stands behind him, trimming his hair with electric shears as he impassively submits […]
However illogical, it’s probably human nature to assume that the worst challenges and disasters happen rarely, while those that occur every day must be trivial. That said, nature cannot be made to follow our thinking. One example: Covid-19, a close relative of the common cold, touched the lives […]
It’s just all so much — the contrasting palettes and swirling forms, the scraped, stained and splattered paint, the disembodied heads and piercing shafts of color. It’s the maximalist expressionism of Matthew Choberka, this month at ‘A’ Gallery. The Weber State University professor has always practiced a style […]
Photographers have a name for it: the Decisive Moment. For painters, the power to lend a timeless dimension to life is part of what validates portraits and figure studies. So it makes sense that one of each — Provo’s journeyman photographer Justin Hackworth, who describes his work simply: […]
Featuring ten artists, including five guest artists and five whom the gallery represents, The Modern West at Modern West Fine Art hones in on personal ties to the state of Utah and the interconnection of the West and individual identity. The exhibition both combines the physical body with […]
The eyes of the “Spell Caster” gaze forth from a countenance at once as ancient as the gnarled forest that surrounds it and as conceptually modern as its nonbinary gender. Bewitching is one word for it, spellbinding another. Much of the portrait’s power comes from its elusive smile: […]
The Great Salt Lake has been a beacon for scientists and artists alike for years. Like any other place warranting so much attention, it becomes progressively more difficult to offer new perspectives on it. Artist Dan Tree has accomplished just that with his show Shoreline Meditations. A simple […]
I had just exited Quiet Storm, Gilmore Scott’s intriguing landscape show at the Chase Home in Liberty Park when, appropriately, a cloudburst broke overhead. “The concept and idea for the Quiet Storm show evolved from a traditional Diné story about storms that came through my mom, who told […]
The Bible, oddly enough, is full of love stories, with none so prominent as that of the first man and woman. Nancy Andruk Olson explores this ancient romance, before the arrival of the serpent and the couple’s ultimate expulsion, in her collection Lover Lay Down. Snuggled away in downtown […]
