Installation view of Hunter Bailey’s “Shield Your Eyes” at Bountiful Davis Art Center, featuring “Saying I Dunno With Some Authority and Assurance” (left) and “You Will Have to Learn Everything All Over Again” (right). Image by Shawn Rossiter.

“It is better by far to remain silent and be thought a fool…than to speak and erase all doubt.” This popular paraphrase of Proverbs 17:28 has nothing to do with the art of Hunter Bailey, now showing at Bountiful Davis Art Center, but it does support an element of his strength. Ambiguity in art is no guarantee of success, but it does leave space open for a variety of readings. The best advice to give a young artist is probably to not be too specific when asked to explain your work. The more viewers that can slot their understanding into its possible readings, the larger its audience might be.

That said, Bailey’s statement does name specifics. There are his early years in Colorado, where the elevation, climate and lack of dense population meant that the scant evidence of human settlement—and its failure—can remain in place for years, slowly decaying in place. In the doomed enterprises and trash heaps, and the difficulty at times in telling which is which, he sees the dying presence of the American Dream. In the alienation of more recent generations, including his own, he sees the arguably inevitable product of a social order that foregrounds struggle over cooperation: an ironic fact given the often progressive, if not actually small-c communalism often observed in the mining communities Bailey may be thinking of.

Hunter Bailey, “Hope is a Subtle Glutton.”

Consider “Hope is a Subtle Glutton.” After a home, an automobile is the largest investment most Americans make. And with the rising cost of housing and the stagnation of US wages, there may be fewer home purchases to compete with those cars. The wrecks on their way to being recycled in “Hope” all appear to be recent vintage—what they call “late models”—which fact argues that the desire that went into their acquisition was either short-lived or violently truncated.

Another iconic presence for Bailey may be beds, or the substantial mattresses most American sleep on. In “It Says Nothing to Me About My Life” and “You Will Have to Learn Everything All Over Again,” what appear to be mattresses have been left outdoors. Whether they speak to romance, the creation of a family, the economics of domestication, or the impact on the environment of a particular social order, the news isn’t good.

It’s never easy to say how much of the artist’s intention makes it through to the viewer, or for that matter how much should. In the works mentioned thus far, Bailey employs what might be called a clean style, depicting the ruins of society like so many advertisements, things desirably pristine, even minimalist in their focus. Further into the exhibition, however, he wraps his meticulous acrylic technique around some physical evidence of the economic and social failures he says taught him how to perceive the reality of how things are going. A cut-off scrap of diamond-embossed steel, a manufactured tile wall treatment, and a weathered window sash make for some complex references. The piece of metal supports images of industrial facilities, while the fragmentary view of a storage business fits the tile’s spatial grid. Finally, the window glass holds up a street scene including a car up on jacks, one wheel missing, and a vast Western sky, expressive of aspirations—but for the lamp stanchion that suggests it’s being viewed from a parking lot. Still, it’s probably a better view than this particular pane of glass opened on during its salad days.

Installation view of Hunter Bailey’s “Shield Your Eyes” at Bountiful Davis Art Center, featuring, from left, “Eating Snowflakes with Plastic Forks” “Vegas is Beautiful at Night” and “Driving Westward Toward the Sea.” Image by Geoff Wichert.

Shield Your Eyes, Bountiful Davis Art Center, Bountiful, through March 28.

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.