Lenka Konopasek works on an installation at the Salt Lake Art Center, photo by Erik Daenitz

With its emphasis on living artists, supplemented with lesser-known works by recent masters (e.g. small paintings by New York’s Abstract-Expressionists) and shows that fill in missing pieces of the big picture, like “Masters of West Coast Assemblage,” the Salt Lake Art Center is never a dull place. For the next month or two, though, it will be particularly lively and engaging, and not least due to an apparent, if unstated and possibly accidental, theme that unites the three current events. Note that’s “events,” not “exhibits,” and the difference points to what may be so exciting. All three gallery spaces contain things that make us feel we are witnessing a passing moment, soon to be gone except for photographs and our memories. On the entry level, Robert Fontenot’s witty portrait of Utah sculpted in bread—bas reliefs of several hundred of our iconic images and features—introduces an artist whose work is a kind of mirror-image of Annie Kennedy’s. Both artists work in non-artistic materials and techniques that draw on folklore to render the interior experience as much as the surface of the local scene, Kennedy an insider while Fontenot, though an outsider, plays the role of tourist straight, affectionate curiosity in place of irony or sarcasm. Downstairs, the large space hosts Expanded Field—scattered, unruly projects by recipients of the International Sculpture Center’s 2010 Student Awards. While there is plenty to like, one particular favorite is Bryan Schoneman’s “Dirt Crown: Portrait Study #1,” in which the universal experience of mud-pie making leads to hilarious commentary on the fate of human ambition. And just past the video player, stool, and dirt field that are the artifacts of his performance is the doorway to “Drawing the Light In,” Artist-in-Residence Lenka Konopasek’s radiant transformation-in-progress of one of the Center’s row of tomb-like chapel galleries into the promisingly-titled “Exit Gallery.”

Prior to becoming artist-in-residence here, Konopasek was known for work in various mediums that explored modern disasters. Her large paintings of flood waters after Hurricane Katrina included an unforgettable aerial image of an elevated freeway that emerged from, or disappeared into, an inland urban sea, the water reflecting the sky. In another series, tornados rip through suburbs fashioned of paper, gathering up cars and fragments of architecture as if they were nothing more than . . . paper. In an ironic note, some of these works are scheduled to be shown later this year in some of the southern states that were hit with devastating storms only last week. Her work in the Salt Lake Art Center, then, has a very different feeling. Last August, she was offered a choice of any of several small rooms along the side of the building that faces the sunken courtyard, above which runs the lawn and fountain in front of Abravanel Hall. She declined one that is used primarily for video presentations and has no windows, admitting, like many artists, to a touch of claustrophobia. Next to it, though, were several small rooms with windows that had been painted over years ago. The Center’s new managers wanted to open these up to the environment outside, but Konopasek, on reflection, also felt uncomfortable with the idea of becoming an installation in a fishbowl and having passers-by watch her back as she painted.

The evolution of creative ideas is rarely simple, and gets complicated when an artist is required to reveal her intentions in order to get funding. “It’s a challenge to keep the concept clear without giving away what I’m going to do,” she explains. Not that is was a secret, but that she needed freedom for the project to evolve as it went along. In any case, her idea was, in large part, for the project to be the transition over time from a dark, closed space to one flooded with light and with sight-lines to and from the patio, hillside, and beyond. She began by cutting away segments of paint. Many of these cuts are rectangles, merging together into dashed lines that flow together from the floor before rising dramatically and bursting into flame-like arrays overhead. In other places the marks are irregular, more rough and gestural in themselves. The effect is a kind of ambiguity seen occasionally in stained glass: there is an elaborate drawing visible on the plane of the glass, or the eye can re-focus on the view outside, including “Column 24,” a painted steel sculpture by Ilya Bolotowsky. The light entering also falls on a forest of paper strips, hung from the ceiling, that viewers can explore for its own sake and for the way it interacts with the pattern of window and light. It’s a remarkable visual experience to enter this small, seemingly-submerged space, where we swim like fish in water made of light.

In addition to being able to see the work’s current state during the Salt Lake Art Center’s regular hours, one can watch her work on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 pm to 4 and Saturday, May 14, from 1pm to 4. Lenka Konopasek will also present an Art Talk on Wednesday, May 25, at 7 pm.

15 Bytes

UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.