{"id":105992,"date":"2026-09-22T11:38:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T18:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=105992"},"modified":"2026-09-23T13:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T20:27:11","slug":"material-hangs-in-the-balance-at-a-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/material-hangs-in-the-balance-at-a-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Material Hangs in the Balance at ‘A’ Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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‘A’ Gallery’s current exhibition features work by several gallery artists<\/p><\/div>\n

In a 2006 interview, Robert Enright described the works of contemporary painter Peter Doig as being \u201cfixed in a sort of drift,\u201d embodying a seemingly contradictory in-between zone that holds tightly to both stasis and movement. Carried into the current exhibition at ‘A’ Gallery is this same tension, where images, marks, and materials seem suspended between states of resolution. Recurring throughout the selected works are dense flurries of mark-making: straight strokes, quick gestures, and dashes no longer than a grain of rice. From a distance, the works resolve into figurative, geometric, or organic silhouettes; up close, however, the image begins to give way to its constituent gestures.<\/p>\n

Some paintings are unruly, creating a texture reminiscent of the growth of a fungal organism. Jennifer Rasmussen\u2019s \u201cFlame,\u201d a four-foot mixed-media work, is a dance between wet and dry brushwork. Earthy ribbons of orange suffuse outwards over misty blue-grays. More of her featured works communicate this same pattern of organic bursts, some venturing closer into the world of representational florals.<\/p>\n

Painter Nathan Mulford\u2019s works, however, approach brushwork through delicate mathematical frameworks with precise pencil tracings atop acrylic. Mulford\u2019s bisected hemispheres and gridlines, though diagrammatic, are no less evocative of the spirit of abstraction. They reference a sense of order that is constantly shifting or realigning. Between Rasmussen and Mulford, abstraction becomes a negotiation between organicism and construction, rather than an ultimatum between the two. Harmony is ultimately created by the inclusion of works with different approaches to organization.<\/p>\n

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Jennifer Rasmusson, “Flame,” acrylic and oil on canvas, 48×42 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Nathan Mulford, “Somerset,” acrylic & graphite on canvas, 48×48 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

Another harmonious curation decision is inserting sculptures (soft, almost whipped, white marble forms) by Ryoichi Suzuki between gallery walls and in corners with more traffic. They create a welcome counterbalance against the non-objective explosions and color fields.<\/p>\n

Matthew Choberka\u2019s “Glimmer in the Grass\u201d catches the eye in more ways than one: the vivid primaries dazzle alongside subtle flashes of glitter in the paint surface. The reflective bits seem to function as a physical, material trace of transformation.<\/p>\n

Traditional canvas shapes alternate with Roland Thompson\u2019s painted aluminum surfaces. \u201cRecord Tape Disk (Post-Punk Mix)\u201d is particularly striking: nine teardrop shapes, each punctuated with a central aperture, are arranged in a grid and painted with horizontal stripes that produce a holographic effect. That illusion, combined with the painting\u2019s surface and shape, reinforces the exhibition\u2019s larger idea of perpetual movement and dissolution.<\/p>\n

The central gallery divider houses several multimedia collage works that almost appear as screenprinted or pixelated images. Steven Stradley, a former Utah artist now based in Michigan, ruminates on consumer images and their degradation in these works ruminates on consumer images and their degradation in these works. Hidden in \u201cUpgrade\u201d are traces of neon signage and a face with a fatigued expression peering from behind a haze of green paint strokes. Drawing upon printed images, Stradley masters an urban texture filled with short-lived paper advertisements, layer upon layer of wheatpasted scraps hiding the messages below. Above the scraped layer of collage scraps, he paints loose figures that, in his words, \u201cbuild and unbuild themselves.\u201d In this sense, his works do not oppose the exhibition\u2019s \u201cfixed drift\u201d but instead complicate it. The forms are caught in the unraveling of their own image.<\/p>\n