There is absolutely nothing wrong with painting from photographs. Even artists who never, ever work from them will tell you they have no quarrel with painters who do so. Photography was invented in the 19th century by painters seeking to shorten the arduous path that leads from three-dimensional […]
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks the most interesting art these days is to be found in the littoral zone where abstraction and representation blend. The new show at ‘A’ Gallery, Love in the Abstract, “invites viewers to explore emotion, connection, and intimacy beyond literal representation.” […]
Cultivated Surfaces, the name of Nathan Mulford’s new show at “A” Gallery (where it is surrounded by the recently reviewed works of Jeff Juhlin and Halee Roth, among others) is without doubt one of the finest exhibition titles to come along in a while. To understand why, it […]
It was just over a year ago, in August of 2024, that Halee Roth debuted in a two-artist exhibition at her local venue, which happens to be the Bountiful Davis Art Center. Recalling those large abstractions, mixed media fields of flawlessly controlled color articulated in depth by map-like […]
“I just want somebody that sees my work to get an experience they wouldn’t get anywhere else”—Jeff Juhlin, 15 Bytes, 2011 His supporters at ‘A’ Gallery have assembled a small but eloquent introduction to the revolutionary new direction Utah native Jeff Juhlin has taken over the past few […]
On any given day, galleries are better able than museums to show artists in depth, so that the subjects and treatments each prefers can be clearly seen. Sometimes a single venue places two such artists side-by-side, allowing useful comparisons, and at other times it’s necessary to travel between […]
Walking into Allen and Alan Fine Art—(or ‘A’ Gallery, as it’s generally known)—it’s clear you’re stepping into a space that reveres artwork. Past the desk, on the left, two large-scale paintings by Jennifer Rasmusson draw you in with a subtle yet dignified seduction. The space, lit by natural […]
An art gallery which contains a courtyard with water and fish (as ‘A’ Gallery does) can run a show called You Animal and succeed in a way those without a “water feature” cannot. Consider the magic and necessary pull of water, whether in drought conditions, or not: settlements/towns/cities […]
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 […]
The puzzle throb in the work by painter Steven Stradley at “A” Gallery is asking for solution, and, at the same time, for no solution but gravity. You feel drop from North to South, continual ambitious crossing from East to West. And back. And, unraveledness, exasperation. Through them […]
“There is much in the scenery to admire; mountain rising above mountain, precipice rising above precipice.” — Samuel Parker, Journal of an Exploring Tour: Beyond the Rocky Mountains in 1835 How do you review mountains, or paintings of mountains? Mountains too formidably, completely, contain all opposites: in paintings, every […]
“To live in these times is in a lot of ways scary, and in all of my recent works I’m working to acknowledge that, and to overcome it,” says Ogden artist Matthew Choberka, whose paintings are ablaze with nearly-neon color, informed abstraction, and monstrous figures that push, […]
As you approach the sunlit clerestory of Salt Lake City’s A Gallery, the first of Toni Doilney’s paintings you see, “Old Town,” prepares you for the dare and ski-run of all these paintings — a rising and falling series of moving terrestrial lines, suggesting terracing, the magic of […]
Linnie Brown’s approximately two dozen pieces in her show Retrace at A Gallery, with titles like “Often Requires Additional Building,” “Need Only to Reattach,” and “The Line Between Now and Then,” make you think of nothing more than — what if all these paintings, with their flanges and […]
There is a neat taking-off trick here: two of Jennifer Rasmusson’s back-in-time representational paintings are here, separated from her New Abstracts now filling A Gallery’s white-on-white indoor sky-lit courtyard area. The pre-abstract “Collection of Blues” is eye-level; it’s very large; one bloom is the size of your head. […]
In his new exhibit, Ryoichi Suzuki’s carved, flowing forms of wood and stone punctuate two rooms in Salt Lake City’s A Gallery. In each sculpture on display, Suzuki uses different types of stone or wood to produce elongated and graceful organic forms. A native of Japan, Suzuki’s subjects […]
After a game of cribbage and a glass or two of Cointreau, my grandfather was apt to rise and recite from “As You Like It”: And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in […]
In the century and a half since photography rose up to challenge painting as an image source, artists have invented countless strategies for incorporating photos into their working methods. Some use snapshots to replace the traditional sketch book. Others primarily paint things they could never see in person, […]
Getting to Jeff Juhlin’s studio on Salt Lake City’s west side is an adventure, something of which the artist – nationally known for his encaustic and mixed-media work—is well aware. “You were only five minutes late,” he says with a smile. “The guy who came to see me […]
