{"id":35466,"date":"2017-06-27T06:52:44","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T12:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=35466"},"modified":"2025-11-09T17:08:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T00:08:49","slug":"diving-into-the-abstract-j-vehar-evanoff-at-modern-west-fine-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/diving-into-the-abstract-j-vehar-evanoff-at-modern-west-fine-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Diving Into the Abstract: J. Vehar Evanoff at Modern West Fine Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nI<\/span>n\u00a0Submerged Reflection,\u00a0<\/em>up this month at Modern West Fine Art,\u00a0<\/em>the versatile painter J. Vehar-Evanoff moves away from depicting the natural world of animals to abstracted landscapes and unpredictable natural elements. As someone from the West \u2014 Vehar-Evanoff was born in Wyoming and raised in Utah \u2014\u00a0 this recent exploration by the artist of wilderness and weather is an extension of the interests that have always made his work stand out. Additionally, the departure from representational subjects puts him into conversation with forerunners of abstract expressionism who also took inspiration from forces and shapes in the landscapes around them.<\/h4>\n

Not to be pinned down by rigid themes or repeating subjects, Vehar-Evanoff has explored several different artistic territories and subjects recently. Last year, he showed pieces at Modern West that featured expressionistic animals native to the western United States, works like \u201cBighorn,\u201d a large oil on canvas that depicts a bighorn sheep made out of intersecting patches of complementary color and concentric circles that visually vibrate. The subject of another painting, \u201cHorse and Rider,\u201d is also suggested by large swaths of color of varying opacities, which makes the pair appear to move within and out of the canvas.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cSubmerged II\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Viewers can see some of these signature Vehar-Evanoff techniques in the works that make up\u00a0Submerged Reflection<\/em>. Pieces in this exhibit are all on the same large canvases the artist favors \u2014 \u201cUntitled I\u201d and \u201cUntitled II\u201d are each 48\u201d x 48\u201d, while \u201cSubmerged II\u201d and \u201cUntitled III\u201d are 60\u201d x 48\u201d \u2014 are executed in earth tones of umbers and grays and characterized by a vacillating opacity of paint \u2014 in places so thinned with Turpenoid or linseed oil one can see through to the canvas. However, in\u00a0Submerged Reflection,\u00a0<\/em>Vehar-Evanoff departs into uncharted visual terrain, leaving behind recognizable, centered subjects and plunging into pure abstract expressionism. The thinness and thickness of the paint, with all of the running and crackling of the material itself, take center stage in \u201cReflection I\u201d and \u201cUntitled III.\u201d The midsection of \u201cReflection I,\u201d where discernible subjects might have been in his previous work, is filled with horizontal brushstrokes of raw umber and runs of thinned paint running down the middle. The top two-thirds of \u201cSubmerged I\u201d feature the same warm, earthy tones and craggy application of paint of varying thickness.<\/h4>\n

\u201cSubmerged II,\u201d with its great upward sweep of oscillating gray, white, and black brushstrokes, has much in common with J. M. W. Turner\u2019s paintings of turbulent oceans and snowstorms (especially \u201cSnow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour\u2019s Mouth\u201d). About Turner, the Tate Modern states, \u201cHis experiments in technique \u2013 his dogged investigations into what paint can do \u2013 as evidenced particularly by his later work, place Turner as a visionary forerunner of later developments in painting, such as impressionism and abstract expressionism.\u201d Vehar-Evanoff seems to be turning to the same exploration of medium, but rooted, like Turner, in the landscape around him.<\/h4>\n
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In addition to thin oil paint, Vehar-Evanoff uses chalk to add visual punctuation to his works. Presented as a diptych, \u201cUntitled I\u201d and \u201cUntitled II\u201d feature chalk strokes that are regularly spaced and nearly vertical. Also over a murky underpainting of thin paint, the black chalk marks of \u201cUntitled II\u201d recede into the background darkness. The white strokes of \u201cUntitled I\u201d stand in contrast to its dark background, almost vertical but curving slightly. Standing back, it\u2019s tempting to see these pieces as closeups of wild animals\u2019 fur or scrubby landscapes recently wasted by forest fire. The muted palette and matter-of-fact chalk create images that seem to come from a world of rough wilderness.<\/h4>\n


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\nAnother piece that features chalk, but uses the medium in a slightly different way, is \u201cUntitled III.\u201d The large canvas has an underpainting of dark umber, gray, and black paint. The brushstrokes are visible but don\u2019t move in the same direction, creating a feeling of shifting movement. In certain places, the paint is almost translucent. On top of this underlayer, the artist has applied white chalk in swirls that look like puffs of cigarette smoke. These white chalk lines create a uniform foreground that enhances and obscures the watery indeterminacy of the dark paint below. This chalk-and-paint piece has an aqueous quality that ties it to the more stormy or fluid pieces in\u00a0Submerged Reflection<\/em>.<\/h4>\n

As Vehar-Evanoff focuses on the raw materials of paint and chalk, and uses applications of them to create big patches of flurried brushstrokes, he leaves representational terrain and addresses the foundational elements of abstract painting. This direction gels with his interest in the western region\u2019s distinctive qualities, as each of the pieces in\u00a0Submerged Reflection\u00a0<\/em>present the powerful roughness of local landscape.<\/h4>\n

Submerged Reflection<\/em>\u00a0is at\u00a0Modern West Fine Art,\u00a0177 E 200 S, Salt Lake City, through July 14.<\/span><\/p>\n

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  In\u00a0Submerged Reflection,\u00a0up this month at Modern West Fine Art,\u00a0the versatile painter J. Vehar-Evanoff moves away from depicting the natural world of animals to abstracted landscapes and unpredictable natural elements. As someone from the West \u2014 Vehar-Evanoff was born in Wyoming and raised in Utah \u2014\u00a0 this recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1523,"featured_media":38096,"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":[],"class_list":["post-35466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/JohnVeharEvanoff_ReflectionI_60x48-350x447-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 18:21:28","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\/35466","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\/1523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35466"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98132,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35466\/revisions\/98132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}