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\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nUNK Gallery<\/b>
\nThe first place you\u2019ll want to look to get a sense of the variety of artwork produced and exhibited in Utah is the 2nd annual\u00a0UNK<\/a>\u00a0Board Show. 120 international, national and local artists submitted 150 customized skateboard decks for this annual exhibit. Last year\u2019s show had about 60 boards by approximately 20 artists. This show is definitely bigger and badder, and in the coming years will continue to increase in size and scope, according to UNK Gallery director Jeremy Herridge. Herridge came up with the idea for this show after seeing a board show online. \u201cWe like object driven shows, it gives artists a chance to break out and do something they wouldn\u2019t normally do.\u201d With the help of the internet, Myspace website, and the\u00a0Blue Bottle Gallery<\/a>\u00a0in Seattle, Herridge was able to pull together a massively diverse show balanced by local, national and international artists.<\/p>\nHerridge\u2019s exhibit favorites run the gamut of styles and artists represented in the show: from local artist and gallery owner\u00a0Kenny Riches<\/a>, whose piece, \u201cPity Party,\u201d|1|<\/b>\u00a0is an acrylic and graphics symbolic work, to Polish-born German artist, Wlodek Stopa, who does large-scale public art and contributed \u201cDynamique Impossible X\u201d for the show.\u00a0|2|<\/b>\u00a0Todd Lawson<\/a>, from Canada, submitted two pieces with rather pointed political and social commentary.|3|<\/b>\u00a0Mike Maas<\/a>, from Tempe, Arizona, is another artist with two submissions, \u201cOur Lady of Transylvania\u201d and \u201cBad Karma,\u201d both of which are somewhat cartoonish, if not slightly macabre.|4|\u00a0<\/b>With a show featuring this many artists in Utah there had to be a landscape or two.\u00a0Laura Boardman<\/a>, of Salt Lake City, painted \u201cLow Clouds over Torrey.\u201d|5|<\/b>\u00a0\u201cHere\u2019s an example of an artist stepping out of their usual bounds,\u201d says Herridge. \u201cLaura normally paints very controlled and tight oils on canvas.\u201d But landscapes were definitely in the minority at the Board Show.<\/p>\n
Kelly Dee Williams\u00a0is a local snowboarder gaining some national recognition for his artwork. His \u201cUntitled with Battle Sword,\u201d another of Herridge’s favorites, features a carved wooden sword applied to the surface of the deck.|6|<\/b>\u00a0Colin Johnson, an east coast artist, created an amazingly complex mixed media collage, \u201cObsessive Skate Deck #1.\u201d\u00a0|7|<\/b>\u00a0The entire deck surface is covered with tiny bits of paper, fabric and photographs. Adam Ellyson, from Connecticut, also went all out, creating a fabric \u201cKozie,\u201d a deck with wheels encased in a hand-sewn, cozy comforter. Finally, Derek Mellus, a local, created one of the more unique pieces in the show, a transformer type piece, \u201cMore Than Meets the Eye,\u201d which transforms from a skate deck to a dog, to a super-hero, to a skier.|8|<\/b><\/p>\n
Art Access<\/b>
\nTransformation is a theme that carries over into\u00a0Dual Nature<\/i>, the Ashley Knudsen exhibit at\u00a0Art Access<\/a>. Knudsen, a Provo artist exhibiting in the main gallery, explores issues of space and containment in a two-dimensional form in her paintings and collograph prints. Knudsen says that she has always been drawn to containers, vessels, boxes and bottles. To her, they represent order and structure. She explains, \u201cThese are the things that give me stability, yet with this body of work, I\u2019ve taken the box, a symbol of order and stability and deconstructed it, broken it down and laid it flat. It no longer serves its function to hold, receive or protect its contents. These boxes now have a dual nature, thus the title of the exhibit.\u201d The boxes become fascinating, flat abstract elements that, in the case of the collograph prints, stand on their own. In the paintings they interact with self-portraiture, a reflection of Knudsen\u2019s interior dialogue and search for balance between the pragmatic and the visionary.|1|<\/b><\/p>\nArt Access II features an exhibit of photography by Emily Allen titled\u00a0Strength in Tradition: Acrobatics in China<\/i>. Allen photographed the children of an acrobatic school\/troupe in a small, impoverished town called Liaocheng in China\u2019s Shan Dong Province. Allen says, \u201cThe headmaster of the school told me that the students are trained in the old way meaning that they don\u2019t use fancy equipment. He kept emphasizing that it is important to train children at a young age, as their bodies are more limber. These children were the hardest working that I have ever seen. Whether they chose to be in the school or their parents put them there, they are there. That\u2019s their everyday reality.\u201d The children are able to twist their bodies into fascinating contortions but it is the transformations of their faces — which at times look surprisingly adult-like, filled with pain, drive, focus and determination — that truly captivate the viewer.|2|<\/b><\/p>\n
Alice Gallery<\/b>
\nThe Utah Arts Council\u2019s\u00a0Alice Gallery, located in the Glendinning Home, is generally home to traditional exhibitions, and on most months you would have a good chance of finding a landscape there. This month, however, a trio of non-objective artists has taken over the room, with startling effect.\u00a0Cary Griffiths<\/a>,\u00a0Andrew Ehninger<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Steve Sheffield<\/a>\u00a0each explore non-objective painting with a unique style, relying on gesture, texture and touch, respectively. Griffiths uses minimal means — sometimes only two colors, often executed with the flick of the wrist to create a single brushstroke — to carry his paintings.|3|<\/b>\u00a0The calligraphic aspect of his works gives the paintings an oriental feel. Sheffield\u2019s paintings have an oriental feel as well, but this is achieved by a process of layering and delicate touches (like a Japanese screen).\u00a0|4|<\/b>\u00a0Ehninger\u2019s work, on the other hand, is anything but delicate. His surfaces are worked up to the point that they are sometimes three or four inches thick. With a palette delighting in chrome yellows, cobalt blues and magentas, he creates topographical paintings that call to mind mineral-stained, rain-eroded stone.|5|<\/b><\/p>\nRose Wagner Art Center<\/b>
\nDespite these examples, some might still contend that the landscape overshadows all other art in the state. Jimmy Lucero, now showing at the\u00a0Rose Wagner Art Center, is one of them. Lucero is a narrative artist whose symbolic paintings are done in representational manner using latex house paint. In the Rose Wagner Exhibit, he included a series of paintings telling the story of the narrative painter (Lucero) taking his props out to the Great Salt Lake, where he is eventually submerged in the salty waters. He dedicates the series \u201cfor all the narrative artists trying to stay afloat in the land of landscapes.\u201d Childhood toys in unconventional settings populate Lucero\u2019s paintings.|6|<\/b>\u00a0\u201cMy narratives began as stories about toys, placing them in humorous situations. As the work evolved, the stories became more personal. I began to combine ideas from works by master painters with my childhood toys to represent my past experiences.\u201d For each of his works, Lucero has provided a detailed allegorical interpretation, including the historical paintings referenced, the different symbols of his personal narratives, and the cultural icons that haunted his childhood. Lucero has done everything he can to bring the viewer into his paintings (including, we\u2019ll note, setting some of them in identifiable Utah landscapes).<\/p>\nShowing concurrently with Lucero is contemporary sculptor\u00a0Court Bennett. Bennett has a playful and imaginative mind and his works inhabit a strange world in which cocoons and pods can be created using electrical plugs and screws. Some may remember Bennett from his 2005 show at the Finch Lane Gallery West, where he created a reptilian skeleton out of PVC pipe and an alien-like creature out of a vacuum hose and cloth. Bennett\u2019s sculptures use everyday materials, including denim and corduroy pants, thick cord rope, screws, and plastics. Most of his works have a soft earthy feel, because of the material, but, as Bennett says, they \u201cstutter-step along the uneasy edge between beauty, menace and humor.\u201d|7|<\/b><\/p>\n
Phillips Gallery<\/b>
\nHumor, without the menace, is prevalent in the work of the late Harry Taylor, which is represented in a two-person show with sculptor\u00a0Cordell Taylor<\/a>\u00a0this month at\u00a0Phillips Gallery<\/a>. A Detroit native and graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, Taylor was art director for Meridian Publishing Co. for thirty years. He is best known for his woodcuts, which have been exhibited internationally. The artist was afflicted with Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease and as his illness progressed he adapted to it and developed new ways of making art. His work was always characterized by strong design and a playful wit and often influenced by the aboriginal art he came across while serving in the South Pacific during World War II.|8|<\/b>\u00a0He shares the space at Phillips Gallery with sculptor Cordell Taylor, well known for his abstract metal sculpture and furniture characterized by clean lines, simplified forms and marvelous surfaces.|9|<\/b>\u00a0This exhibit also features collographs, 2-D versions of Taylor\u2019s sculpture.<\/p>\nAs you can see, it seems like we could go on and on with a list of non-landscape shows. In fact, you might be hard-pressed to find a landscape in a gallery this month.<\/p>\n
Salt Lake Art Center<\/b>
\nLest you think January is merely an aberration in a generally landscaped year, we\u2019ll note the two artists of international reputation being shown at the\u00a0Salt Lake Art Center<\/a>\u00a0in February. Recently opened on the street level gallery is an exhibition of the \u201czebra stripe paintings\u201d of Sophie Matisse, granddaughter of Henri Matisse and step granddaughter of Marcel Duchamp. Matisse has become well known in the New York art world for her reinterpretations of iconographic paintings in which key participants or elements of the paintings are absent (missing paintings?). Her \u201czebra stripe paintings\u201d are a combination of these deconstructed paintings with layers of a second painting or design.|10|<\/b><\/p>\nBeginning February 10, the main gallery of the art center features works by Robert Motherwell, the youngest and most prolific member of the Abstract Expressionist group and a resident of Salt Lake City in his youth. Motherwell was one of the more scholarly members of the New York school and helped to articulate their aims and methods to a worldwide audience. He is best known for his long series of \u201cElegies to the Spanish Republic\u201d executed over a forty-year span. Elegy #126 from 1976 is included in this exhibition.|11|<\/b>\u00a0A number of Motherwell\u2019s collages will also be featured. The collages were a method for Motherwell to incorporate autobiographical material \u2013 his favorite cigarettes or book publisher \u2013 into his work.<\/p>\n
Patrick Moore<\/b>
\nCollage of a not quite so international reputation will also be on display at the\u00a0Patrick Moore Gallery <\/a>beginning February 17th, with the opening of Shawn Rossiter\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Choice & Chance<\/i>\u00a0exhibit. Rossiter, who exhibited a 30 foot pastel drawing last year and promises to create an even larger one for a show at the Art Barn in September, will be displaying some abstracted pastel drawings and paintings as well as recent collage works which incorporate materials from games of chance, album covers, wallpaper and art history books.|12|<\/b><\/p>\nUtah Artist Hands<\/b>
\nAlso coming up in February of a non-landscape variety are the works of\u00a0Szugye\u00a0at\u00a0Utah Artist Hands<\/a>. Szugye\u2019s paintings of jazz musicians, jazz bars and nightlife might lead you to believe that he is a refugee from the disaster in New Orleans, but Szuyge has been in the Utah scene for a long time. He paints the early jazz scene, hoping to capture the inclusive quality \u2013 integrated women and men from across cultural and ethnic backgrounds — that jazz music promoted. His artistic process, with an emphasis on rich color, ink detail, art deco references, and texture, mimics the era\u2019s aesthetics.|13|<\/b><\/p>\nRio Gallery<\/b>
\nAt the\u00a0Rio gallery\u00a0in February you\u2019ll find\u00a0Chimera: Fur\/Feather\/Skin\/Scale<\/i>, a group show of area artists Trent Call, Leia Bell, Jenny Lord, Tessa Lindsey, Dana Costello, David Ruhlman, Toby Putnam and Sri Whipple. The show\u2019s title refers to the chimera of Greek mythology, a fire-breathing animal with a lion\u2019s head and foreparts, a goat\u2019s middle, a dragon\u2019s rear, and a tail in the form of a snake; and to the modern scientific usage of a human or non-human \u201cindividual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution.” Each artist will render his\/her version of a humanized animal within boundaries of the four subcategories: fur, feather, skin and scale.<\/p>\nNeed we go on? Landscapes are a dominant part of the Utah art scene, but if you think that that is all there is to Utah art, maybe you haven\u2019t been paying attention.<\/p>\n
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- \n\t\t\t\t“Untitled” (Epson print from color negative) by Emily Allen at Art Access II through Feb. 10.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>
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