Shalee Cooper, “Deep in Thought,” 2017

There’s a general rule at 15 Bytes: the art we write about should be on public display somewhere at the same time. For living artists, that usually means we’re writing about something made in the past year or two, freshly hung on a gallery wall. In the case of Shalee Cooper, that would be something like “Possibility,” the dramatic set of 12 panels that stretches almost 11 feet across a gallery wall and can be rearranged to suit, which appeared behind the artist in the pages of Salt Lake Magazine when it named her “Best Artist” for 2024. But Modern West’s Summer Salon also includes her witty photo collage from 2017, “Deep in Thought.” An androgynous bust sports a bow tie and a copious hat, from which a pair of apparently detached arms extend downwards and wrap around the eyes, nose, and ears, blocking most of the sense organs. Limited to black and white, the overall effect recalls the often eerie photography of mainstream Surrealism, an effect compounded by the way the image is hung plumb on the wall, while the frame is subtly skewed. There’s a disturbing disjunction between awareness and the real world.

The contrast of humorous presentation and a serious subject can be found elsewhere in the Summer Salon. On a pylon opposite “Deep in Thought” are two of V. Kim Martinez’s “Mujeres de Colores”—visions of otherwise conventional women of color, dressed here in superhero costumes and performing feats of daring. “Dottie” leaps and soars across the canvas in a blue-and-white bustier, shorts, elbow-length gloves lined with loops of ribbon, and elegant, white cowboy boots. “Judy,” in blue overalls and gloves, accessorized with a copper hard hat, buckled black boots, and a coil of rope at her side, could be leaping off a tall building. Their competence may be foremost, but there’s no reason why that should preclude a sense of personal style.

V. Kim Martinez, “Mujeres de Colores: Judy,” 2016, oil on aluminum 48 x 48 in.

Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein made a career of hand-painting the ubiquitous, half-tone characteristics of machine lithography, going so far as to craft images of brush strokes composed of Ben-Day dots. If it was ironic that cheap lithography threatened an end to the craft of painting, Ben Steele takes the point one step further in “Oh Boy Roy,” where he’s faked a Lichtenstein image with colored pencils in place of faux printing.

Fidalis Buehler doesn’t paint jokes, but the vignettes he captures can be light-hearted. The “Bather” paintings are engaging scenes from family life, but “On the Move,” in which the figure has four legs at the same time—two standing and two walking—and “Cross Paths,” with two figures that form an X as they pass, demonstrate how visual and verbal elements can have fun playing together. Meanwhile, “My Shirt” displays a deliberate error of scale: the shirt is seen close enough to see the fabric, but too close to grasp the whole garment. Buehler may be the most prolific painter in Utah, and one of this BYU professor’s unmistakable images can turn up almost anywhere.

A wall at Modern West’s Summer Salon with works by Kiki Gaffney, Fidalis Buehler, Mitch Mantle and Beatrice Mandleman. Image by Geoff Wichert.

Although a few of the usual suspects are missing, Cooper has pulled together no fewer than 32 artists for this Summer Salon, including gallery regulars as well as a few guests. Until August 16, when the gallery closes for two weeks, they can be seen in person or previewed on the gallery’s splendid website, modernwestfineart.com. After the 16th, the web page will have to do.

Summer Salon, Modern West Fine Art, Salt Lake City, through Aug. 16

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.