{"id":31759,"date":"2016-02-04T00:07:25","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T06:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=31759"},"modified":"2018-10-09T14:34:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T20:34:40","slug":"i-want-to-be-happy-in-this-picture-art-access-welcomes-turn-city-for-the-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/i-want-to-be-happy-in-this-picture-art-access-welcomes-turn-city-for-the-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I want to be happy in this picture&#8221; &#8211; Art Access Welcomes Turn City for the Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-31759 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/i-want-to-be-happy-in-this-picture-art-access-welcomes-turn-city-for-the-arts\/newyork-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/newyork-2-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/newyork-2-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/newyork-2-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/newyork-2-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/i-want-to-be-happy-in-this-picture-art-access-welcomes-turn-city-for-the-arts\/pokemon\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/pokemon-1-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/pokemon-1-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/pokemon-1-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/pokemon-1-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/i-want-to-be-happy-in-this-picture-art-access-welcomes-turn-city-for-the-arts\/raphael\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/raphael-1-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/raphael-1-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/raphael-1-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/raphael-1-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/i-want-to-be-happy-in-this-picture-art-access-welcomes-turn-city-for-the-arts\/weednikkigardner\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"290\" height=\"290\" src=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/WeedNikkiGardner-1-290x290.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/WeedNikkiGardner-1-290x290.jpg 290w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/WeedNikkiGardner-1-120x120.jpg 120w, https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/WeedNikkiGardner-1-360x360.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 290px) 100vw, 290px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Utah is home to a wide variety of art venues, from those that deal in highly polished decor to others showing art so conceptual the gallery may look empty at first. Museums play a role here, varied by location\u2014one downtown, another in the shopping mall\u2014and their mix of public and private sponsorship. Dependably locating a particular type of art is more than a little like finding a preferred cuisine: you have to be familiar enough with the options to know where yours is likely to be served. No single gallery shows a more diverse selection than Art Access, a publicly funded facility devoted to making sure that what it takes to make art will be accessible to all. It\u2019s a loose mission statement, but that hasn\u2019t stopped the Art Access staff from stretching it to accommodate ever-wider creative expressions. Perhaps the closest thing to a \u201ctypical\u201d exhibition here would be the ongoing collaboration of Brian Kershisnik and Joe Adams: one of Utah\u2019s most sophisticated, popular, and widely known artists and a man with Down syndrome working side-by-side to make art that combines purity and sophistication in a manner no one artist could achieve working alone.<\/p>\n<p>There are times when Art Access comes closer than any other Utah venue to exhibiting what is variously called \u201cArt Brut\u201d in French or \u201cOutsider Art\u201d in English. These categories encompass art from several unusual sources. Sometimes mental patients are included, at other times work by incarcerated criminals. Lack of years of formal training is often a given. Sometimes it just means an artist who worked in solitude, with no feedback, and left a body of unique and unprecedented artworks. There is no requirement for art made as a form of therapy, but there\u2019s nothing against it, either. So it comes as a boon to the Salt Lake arts community that Turn City Center for the Arts and Art Access have cooperated, under the auspices of curator Natasha Hoffman, to present two related exhibits, each foregrounding a recognized artistic material. In <em>The Color of Being,<\/em> approximately 27 paintings explore generously employed color as content, while the 19 additional works in <em>To Express: To Set Forth in Words<\/em> add language as an expressive means, whether used literally, often derived from memoir-like sources, or compositionally.<\/p>\n<p>Proof, if desired, of the legitimacy of the work is quickly found. None of these variously mixed- media works is \u201cpretty\u201d or vacuous. Each artist each time out has an experience to recall and convey, a point to make, often through sophisticated means. In Nicholas Pawlicki\u2019s \u201cRaphael Facing Backwards,\u201d an oval comprised of hexagons commands attention from across the room, while green and red forms trailing from it create an upward tension, like a balloon straining to rise or a boat moving through water. Only up close can the peripheral elements be recognized as the arms, legs, and head of the artist\u2019s hero, one of the immensely popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles\u2014the subjects of graphic narratives with a delightful and imaginative name that, with teen tongue firmly in cheek, neatly combines four of today\u2019s more popular topics. Pawlicki has chosen to show his hero\u2019s back instead of his masked face in order to focus on the intricate pattern of the shell. Next to it, another fantasy universe makes a visual appearance in Jonathan Evans\u2019 \u201cA Rainbow, a Lombre, and a Pokemon [The Water Type].\u201d Evans exploits\u2014or perhaps invents for himself\u2014one of the cutting edge ideas of today\u2019s most progressive artists by foregrounding the process of his work, on which the incomplete rainbow lifts out of an inchoate mass on the left and curves across the sky to the right like a geyser or a tropical bird\u2019s tail, leaving a balanced but asymmetrical background to which a fish-like form on a pedestal is unmistakably attached, creating a three-dimensionally active composition.<\/p>\n<p>Innovation has always been an important part of art. Rubens, no less than Andy Warhol, sought new ways of making marks that were either more efficient, more convincing, or both. Here Earl Horne Jr. comes up with an original way to depict his subject in \u201cThe White Wavy Water,\u201d a composition of acrylic paint and plastic wrap on paper. Taking advantage of the antagonistic way water-borne acrylic paint sits on plastic wrap, Horne laminates white-streaked plastic loosely over a handpainted blue background, producing a view that ripples to life as the viewer moves before it.<\/p>\n<p>It wouldn\u2019t be right to convey the idea that technical innovation or storytelling are the only things on offer here. Many of the images are simply beautiful in ways closer to, say, Abstract Expressionism sized for domestic use than to Hallmark greeting cards. Katie Gardner and Darin Erickson each offers a predominantly green form, Gardner\u2019s contrasted with gold and Erickson\u2019s with blue, that demonstrate the infinite range of even a single color. In \u201cWeed,\u201d a work the equal of any evocative abstract, Nikki Gardner evokes magic enclosures ranging from Stonehenge to the Disney Concert Hall with an economy of means that guarantees the image will never seem old.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unlikely that every artwork here will please a given viewer, but it seems possible that every one will delight and, as the saying goes, speak to someone. Edward Johnson\u2019s \u201cThe City of New York\u201d may not initially thrill fans of the redrock and wilderness, but his panorama of three street views laid one above the other, like Ed Ruscha\u2019s \u201cEvery Building on the Sunset Strip,\u201d might well seduce them with its six-pointed starry sky and comments like: \u201cI\u2019m walking down the street and I feel the buildings are gonna fall on top of me.\u201d If not, we can all agree with his big-city angst, as he enters a dance hall and admits, \u201cI want to be happy in this picture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Turn City for the Arts&#8217; &#8220;The Color of Being&#8221; and &#8220;To Express: To Set Forth in Words&#8221; is at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.accessart.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Art Access Gallery<\/a> in Salt Lake City through February 12.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Utah is home to a wide variety of art venues, from those that deal in highly polished decor to others showing art so conceptual the gallery may look empty at first. Museums play a role here, varied by location\u2014one downtown, another in the shopping mall\u2014and their mix of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":847,"featured_media":31815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[468,2748,2749,2750,2746,2747,2745],"class_list":["post-31759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-art-access","tag-darin-erickson","tag-earl-horne-jr","tag-natasha-hoffman","tag-nicholas-pawlicki","tag-nikki-gardner","tag-turn-city-for-the-arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/newyork.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 17:31:44","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\/31759","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\/847"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31759"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39331,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31759\/revisions\/39331"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}