{"id":19424,"date":"2013-03-07T02:55:05","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T08:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=19424"},"modified":"2021-01-30T17:27:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T23:27:00","slug":"stephanie-leitch-structures-of-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/stephanie-leitch-structures-of-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephanie Leitch: Structures of Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"leitch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look back as a child, I was always making big 3-dimentional projects, although I did not see it as art,\u201d says Stephanie Leitch, a Salt Lake City artist preparing for an upcoming exhibit at Nox Contemporary. While studying for her art degree at the University of Utah, Leitch was not interested in the conventional. \u201cI never got a piece of clay and sculpted it or I never chiseled marble.\u201d She says process is what propels an artist. \u201cYou are satisfied in the process of something and that something pushes you forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exploring space, and its evolution through time, is the \u201csomething\u201d that has driven Leitch\u2019s work formally and thematically. In \u201cStrata,\u201d a site-specific work using a vacant retail space in Sugarhouse, Leitch considered the Salt Lake environs and the impact of time and physical change on its ecosystem. A graphic pattern of inverted pyramids was created by suspending distinctly shaped fabric units. Each form represented natural processes of nonlinear water systems that collected and eventually released water onto mounds of earth below the form — measurable change in a controlled space. Similarly, in \u201cThe Dark Shy Pupil,\u201d molasses and peanut oil were mixed in tubes anchored to the ceiling, and the mixture traveled to the ground along thin fibers, creating pools on the tiles below.<\/p>\n

This past month, Leitch has been preparing for a new installation at Nox Contemporary. \u201cUntitled Congregation\u201d will be a massive installation that takes over the entire gallery space and examines another sort of local ecosystem. Like earlier works, it is a time-dependent system, and will play out over a two-hour period on March 15th. In the installation, a skeletal form of 180 \u201cappendages\u201d (made up of a total of 6000 plastic sacrament cups normally used for LDS church services) will hang from a grid structure along the gallery\u2019s ceiling. A flow of water will pass through the grid, and, traveling from one cup to the next through a process of accretion, will unify the entire work in an animation of sight and sound.<\/p>\n

But Leitch is fascinated less by any grandiosity, and more by a process that \u201ctakes the minute and pushes it to its utmost extent.\u201d This minutia is the source for a unique blend of space and structure. \u201cThe water droplets undergo a series of collection, containment and release,\u201d says the artist, and this creates a unique effect on the membrane the artist has created for each receptacle. Given the most fragmented of elemental allowances, the cohesion and play of water will be variable. This might be seen as a microcosm to the spatial structure of the whole. Water is contained and then released into channels whereby its course is entirely unique and variable. With total randomness and the absolutely unpredictable, the only constant here is beauty in a unique and fantastical structure of space.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery form is the evidence of action,\u201d says the artist, who describes her massive self-generated work as \u201ca structure which gravity acts upon.\u201d Leitch\u2019s self-generated installations may be considered organic in nature, suggesting metaphorical links to the spatial structures of any number of systems. These might be natural, like the reproductive systems of flora and fauna or the biological systems and subsystems of the human body. Or they might be more abstract, like the development of an ideological system, or the spiritual ecosystem of a collective group. Leitch\u2019s ideology gives form to these complicated systems, creating environments that explore what Leitch calls the \u201cphenomenology of space,\u201d or the influence of space on perception. Ultimately, Leitch addresses the fundamental realities of space, as the site\u2019s source for each installation and as an essential element of each work in her expansive oeuvre. She treats space more as the kind of physical structure it is, albeit hard to define, and less as arbitrary emptiness, easy to ignore.<\/p>\n

The form of \u201cUntitled Congregation\u201d — without the animating power of the water flow — will remain at Nox Contemporary through April 19th and a video loop will provide visitors with a simulacrum of the original experience. But since, as Leitch says, the installation is a \u201cprocess living itself out in front of the viewer,\u201d to appreciate the fullness of the beauty of the spectacle and to perceive the structure of the space and its animated transformation, you probably have to be there.<\/p>\n

Untitled Congregation<\/em>, with new works by\u00a0Stephanie Leitch<\/a>, is at\u00a0Nox Contemporary<\/a>through April 19th. An opening reception will be held on March 15th from 6-9pm and a closing reception will be held on April 19th from 6-9pm. Nox Contemporary is located at 440 South 400 West, Suite H. They are open Monday, Thursday, and Friday from noon-5pm and during gallery stroll from 6pm -9pm.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhen I look back as a child, I was always making big 3-dimentional projects, although I did not see it as art,\u201d says Stephanie Leitch, a Salt Lake City artist preparing for an upcoming exhibit at Nox Contemporary. While studying for her art degree at the University of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":19560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[100,1328],"class_list":["post-19424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-nox-contemporary","tag-stephanie-leitch"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/leitch.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 02:15:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19424"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56485,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19424\/revisions\/56485"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}