Beth Krensky can be seen in the rear talking about her “Keys to Open the Beginning Before the End,” at Material Contemporary in South Salt Lake.

Beth Krensky’s solo exhibition, The Trees Will Love You and the Earth Will Hold You, at Material Gallery in South Salt Lake, Utah, is a quietly powerful meditation on belonging, vulnerability, and the healing potential of nature. Through a thoughtful arrangement of sculpture, video, and performance relics, Krensky invites viewers to slow down and reconnect with the world under their feet and above their heads.

From the moment we enter the gallery, Krensky’s work envelops us in a sense of gentle ritual. The space is punctuated by delicate, hand-crafted objects: a shroud stitched from salvaged cloth, vessels filled with earth, and branches suspended to suggest both fragility and resilience. Each piece is imbued with the artist’s characteristic sensitivity to material and meaning—her practice often blurs the line between art object and spiritual tool.

Central to the exhibition is a video of Krensky’s performance, “Dispatch from Solitude#1:Pilgrimage to the Very Center,” where she traverses a labyrinth on the Oregon coast. The exhibition distills this performative act into video and textual fragments, connecting viewers to lived rituals, embodied practices, and personal histories. Drawing on Jewish mystical traditions and environmental activism, Krensky uses accessible, universal language. Her sparse, poetic texts invite viewers to reflect on their relationships with the more-than-human world. As Krensky states,

“Art can operate as a restorative gesture, reanimating overlooked fragments and allowing viewers to imagine alternative relationships with matter, memory, and place.”

The exhibition’s intent is not nostalgia, but to foster attention that is both urgent and sustaining.

Still from “Dispatch from Solitude#1:Pilgrimage to the Very Center”

The most moving aspect of The Trees Will Love You and the Earth Will Hold You is its invitation to vulnerability. The viewer is held, metaphorically, by the earth. In a time marked by ecological anxiety and social fragmentation, Krensky’s work offers not just solace, but a call to reconnection—one that lingers long after leaving the gallery. In a cultural moment dominated by spectacle and speed, The Trees Will Love You and the Earth Will Hold You insists on slowness, tenderness, and reverence. It is a quiet but resonant contribution to contemporary conversations about ritual, ecology and the politics of repair.

Material Gallery proves an ideal setting for this intimate, contemplative show. For those open to its quiet magic, Krensky’s exhibition is less an art-viewing experience and more a gentle ceremony, reminding us of the profound reciprocity between people and place.

The Trees Will Love You and the Earth Will Hold You, Material Contemporary, South Salt Lake, through September 25. Closing Reception Thursday, September 25, 6-8 pm.

Kim Martinez

V. Kim Martinez is a Salt Lake native and has been a professor of painting and drawing at the University of Utah since 2001. Martinez received her Master’s of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is interested in painting and drawing, encaustic painting, community murals, foundry, mosaics and video animation. Her research concerns societal structures which fluctuate between the positive and negative, the concrete and the abstract. Martinez is an enthusiastic educator and is committed to public engagement through the arts – she continues to gain local and national recognition for her contributions.