{"id":22648,"date":"2013-09-05T11:40:45","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T17:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=22648"},"modified":"2025-11-09T22:22:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T05:22:18","slug":"namon-billss-that-thing-you-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/namon-billss-that-thing-you-hate\/","title":{"rendered":"Namon Bills’ That Thing You Hate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Namon Bills is an exception to the quotidian norms of the professional curator. Driven not by ambition, but to curate solely based on strong convictions, the artist\u2019s desire to organize exhibitions has transformed into a devotion for something in which he is now expert.\u00a0 Call him amateur, he does not mind. \u201cI like the word amateur,\u201d says Bills unapologetically.\u00a0 \u201cI learned that it comes from the root words for \u2018love of\u2019 and I like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have always wanted to be an artist,\u201d says Bills, who received his MFA from Utah State University after doing his undergraduate work at BYU. \u201cCuration came organically and developed on its own.\u201d \u00a0This development was grounded \u201con strong convictions\u201d that have come to affect every aspect of his curatorial process.\u00a0 This involves encouraging freedom in each artist, involvement from all throughout the project, and an overall spirit of unity. \u201cOne of the most exciting things for me as a curator is to come up with ideas, and then find what the artists come up with,\u201d Bills relates. \u201cTo let them take it and run with it \u2014 to see their creativity in a way they choose to interpret the concept and where they choose to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This helps explains why his current exhibit,\u00a0That Thing You Hate<\/em>\u00a0at Salt Lake\u2019s Alice Gallery, is so successful. It\u2019s his seventh major curatorial group show, dating to 2008 with \u201cThe State Street Project,\u201d a very auspiciou endeavour.\u00a0 Each exhibit has had a core concept, and a gestalt experience emerges from Bills\u2019 curatorial practice, as each show goes beyond form to function on an idea that creates a fabric of meaning.<\/p>\n

In the current show, three artists were paired with three other artists, the first group being the mentees, the second the mentors.\u00a0 Each of the mentees \u2014 Namon Bills, Linnie Brown and Justin Wheatley \u2014 were asked to consider an artistic style outside of their comfortable milieu. \u201cWe each chose something that we see as having value but don\u2019t like to do, but we recognize that if we were to dedicate ourselves to this thing it would probably be useful for us,\u201d Bills says. The mentors chosen were Jeff Pugh, Chris Terry and Casey Childs.<\/p>\n

Each team was encouraged to engage in a tutorial, a learning experience, but the extent of this and how much the mentor\u2019s personal method and style would influence the mentees, was up to each individual group<\/p>\n

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Jeff Pugh, “Flooded Fields”<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the most striking compositions in the show is Jeff Pugh\u2019s \u201cFlooded Field.\u201d Pugh has a singular manner of creating lush canvases thick with rich hue. Elementally, Pugh has an affinity with geometry, and as bold as are his colors and as vast as are his vistas, they are characteristically reduced. \u00a0There is a lack of nuance, and what we see are exciting shapes and motifs that are closer in style and substance to Paul Cezanne than they are to LeConte Stewart.<\/p>\n

One result of this collaboration is Bills\u2019 \u201cPlane.\u201d|2|<\/strong>\u00a0 It shares the same long horiztonals of the Pugh piece but otherwise is completely different. Bills\u2019 work is, true to his nature, experimental, and reductive on a different level completely. Here, a larger upper plane that takes up five-sixths of the canvas gradates from powder blue at the top to white at the bottom. Here it hits a low-lying horizon line, beneath which lies a section full of varied tones of green and patches of blue. This is neo-Minimalism at its boldest and with it comes a strong response.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnveil\u201d is a stunning figurative composition by Childs.|3|<\/strong>\u00a0He beautifully leaves his brushwork open, definite enough to convey a striking and definite figure, but loose enough to allow a multiplicity of responses from the viewer\u2019s emotional and cognitive sensibilities. The most striking elements are the contrasts: the teal blue background, executed in rough and coarse brushstrokes, accentuates the softness of the sitter\u2019s skin, which is rendered in shades of ivory and milky white; this in turn accentuates the sitter\u2019s deep chestnut hair, interspersed with streaks of red and pulled back in a flare of chestnut brown and crimson red. In the classical style, the model has her lower portion loosely draped and even here bold contrasts appear in the rich folds of pomegranate red.\u00a0 It is a marvelous portrait rendered in a classic mode with splashes of contemporary flavor.<\/p>\n

How does any of this translate into the mixed media postmodern works of Linnie Brown?\u00a0 Brown\u2019s style is very much her own, but most certainly the mentorship was a successful one.\u00a0 Displayed are unique creations of mixed media with only portions of hand drawing, yet all of Brown\u2019s works succeed in the academic requirements of figural rendering.\u00a0 \u201cFigure #26\u201d is intriguing; as goes contemporary mixed media, this work stands apart.|4|<\/strong>\u00a0 It is a brilliant play of raw materials using only the barest traces of the hand, and compiled into form remarkably similar to Kurt Schwitters getting a hold of paper dolls. Although left to the pure medium of collage, the subject is rendered fluidly with a high degree of naturalism.<\/p>\n

From still life virtuoso Christopher Terry comes a work of technical near-perfection \u2014 \u201cFluorescent Halo.\u201d|5|<\/strong>\u00a0 Not a minutia of detail is left to the imagination: every fragment is rendered with a draftsman\u2019s precision. The folds on the tablecloth have a satiny sheen, which is reflected on the polished smooth floor, and the objects on the table are perfectly arranged and ordered centrally, while a \u201cfluorescent halo\u201d casts the ideal light to create the illusions of depth, light, shadow and space.<\/p>\n

Although not one to choose still life as a preferred artistic mode, Wheatley\u2019s \u201cCamille\u2019s Kenmore\u201d is so compelling it might initiate a new direction for the artist.|6|<\/strong>\u00a0Wheatley has chosen a vintage sewing machine as his subject matter, and true to his signature form, it has palpable gravity and weight.\u00a0 Instead of shying away from the example of Terry, Wheatley meets it, albeit in his own manner. The two compositions are not dissimilar: both have a central squared structure occupying the lower half of the canvas; both subjects appear on a flat smooth surface and are activated by bold play of light.\u00a0 Using this formula and appropriate precision, Wheatley creates a backdrop of smoky white, lit from either side.\u00a0 The focal shape is rendered with accuracy and exactitude, but Wheatley is not aiming towards illusion, he is seeking the reality of the piece.\u00a0 He focuses, like a neo-Cubist, on the many planes of the machine set at various angles and differentiated only by contrasting intensities of tonality, lending a Modernist lack of similitude and implied depth; it is an analytic approach decidedly not of traditional illusionistic representation.<\/p>\n

The concept driving\u00a0That Thing You Hate<\/em>\u00a0is not esoteric, but meaningful as it motivates the artists to traverse their sphere of comfort, to transcend their personal boundaries, and attempt something new and expansive.\u00a0 This\u00a0raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>, the type that is a fundamental quality of Bills\u2019 curatorial projects, is a benefit to the artist, unique from the benefit of the patron.\u00a0 These are opportunistic challenges to self-imposed norms of artistic and aesthetic limitation enabling growth and liberation.
\nThat Thing You Hate,\u00a0<\/em>curated by Namon Bills and featuring work by Bills, Casey Childs, Jeff Pugh, Linnie Brown, Justin Wheatley and Christopher Terry, is at the\u00a0Alice Gallery<\/a>\u00a0in Salt Lake City through October 4. A reception for the artists will be held Friday September 20, 6-9pm.<\/span><\/p>\n

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What should artists do about styles they don’t like? Namon Bills says embrace them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":22686,"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":[920,1637],"class_list":["post-22648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-alice-gallery","tag-namon-bills"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/ttyhblog.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 10:09:22","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\/22648","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=22648"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98227,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22648\/revisions\/98227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}