{"id":38042,"date":"2017-07-27T08:29:03","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T14:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=38042"},"modified":"2018-09-21T08:31:01","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T14:31:01","slug":"animation-in-the-spotlight-under-the-influence-at-rio-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/animation-in-the-spotlight-under-the-influence-at-rio-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"Animation in the Spotlight: Under the Influence at Rio Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cEpic Tornado\u201d by Jason Jones<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

T<\/span>hanks to Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein storming the art world in the 1960s, scenes from comic books, graphic novels, and newspaper advertisements don\u2019t look totally foreign in art gallery space. However, animation and illustration are still separated from the serious business of producing \u201chigh-brow\u201d art by critics and audience members alike. On exhibit at the Rio Gallery,\u00a0Under the Influence\u00a0<\/em>sees local Utah artists challenge these kinds of social and cultural categorizations and explore animation\u2019s role in their personal artistic developments. In the show, many two-dimensional artists manage to capture the energy and movement of cartoons and comics with well-executed compositions, color pairing, and line quality. The exhibit\u2019s accompanying text summarizes the artists\u2019 goals well, saying, \u201cUnder the Influence<\/em>\u00a0harnesses the joyful and whimsical stylistic elements unique to the animation genre. The profound impact of animation on these artists and contemporary culture merits recognition and celebration.\u201d<\/h4>\n

In his colorful and kinetic landscapes, curator and featured artist Jason Jones channels Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss). Many of Jones\u2019 paintings are landscapes, but animation\u2019s influence has infused them with brightness and dynamism often missing from the traditional genre\u2019s tranquil scenes. \u201cMystery Woods\u201d is an acrylic painting on board with dominant purples in the foreground, playfully tilting trees, and a light-green sky. The wood\u2019s complementary and cartoon-y palette create a nostalgic scene for people who grew up on Chuck Jones\u2019\u00a0Bugs Bunny\u00a0<\/em>and Dr. Seuss\u2019s books. In \u201cEpic Tornado,\u201d the sweeping shape of trees and bushes being sucked into a vortex show a landscape that\u2019s a whirl of energy. The composition and colors in Jones\u2019 pieces borrow from cartoons to bring unique energy to Rio Gallery\u2019s walls.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cParlay Party\u201d by Trent Call<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Another featured artist, Trent Call, creates layered acrylic paintings with huge, grinning (or grimacing) faces, suggested with precise, intersecting lines. His \u201cParlay Party\u201d is one of the first pieces\u00a0Under the Influence<\/em>\u2019s visitors encounter. At first, it\u2019s hard to detect where animation comes into the careful layers of acrylic paint and coordinated red, yellow, blue, and teal shapes in front of you. Stepping back, a wide-eyed face pops from the canvas like a nearly-painted-over graffiti tag on a city street. The clean lines and precise design of this piece and others, like \u201cA Day in a Life,\u201d look like single frames of animated films that, while suspended in mid-motion, still retain their manic energy.<\/h4>\n

Some artists in\u00a0Under the Influence<\/em>, like Evan Jed Memmott, use animation\u2019s classic media of ink or paint on paper, but also experiment with less-common techniques. In addition to his layered screenprints like \u201cWatch Your Step,\u201d in which he uses repeated figures in bright colors and Roy Lichtenstein-esque dots, Memmott also presents animation-inspired works on wood skateboard decks. \u201cEventually\u201d is an oblong piece of wood that has been burned with a metallic point and stained to create a wobbly, interlocked pattern of green, yellow, and brown. Because this skateboard\u2019s design was not mass-produced like most skateboard decks, \u201cEventually\u201d pays homage to great skateboard designers, and because the piece looks like it could never be used without being destroyed, \u201cEventually\u201d also seems at home in the gallery \u2014 a place typically reserved for \u201cone of a kind\u201d type of art. The contrast between unique and mass-produced skateboard designs puts Memmott\u2019s wood pieces at the intersection between ubiquitous, disposable art and one-off artisan craft.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cWatch Your Step\u201d by Evan Jed Memmott<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Together, many pieces in the show ask questions about how painterly or artisan techniques help define \u201cfine art.\u201d Another question that crops up in several pieces in\u00a0Under the Influence\u00a0<\/em>is whether mechanical repetition (like printing or copying) lessens the individual or unique impact of an image, or if it can be used (as in film) to create the appearance of energy and movement. All these questions factor into how animation, illustration, and other forms of art are defined and regarded by our culture as a whole. The show brings together local artists who comment on these issues with their artistic practices in fresh and engaging ways.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cUnder the Influence: Eight Local Artists Influenced by Animation\u201d:\u00a0Rio Gallery<\/a>, Salt Lake City, through Sept. 1.
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\u201cEpic Tornado\u201d by Jason Jones Thanks to Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein storming the art world in the 1960s, scenes from comic books, graphic novels, and newspaper advertisements don\u2019t look totally foreign in art gallery space. However, animation and illustration are still separated from the serious business of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1523,"featured_media":38043,"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-38042","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\/2018\/09\/epic_tornado-335x500.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 03:32:03","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\/38042","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=38042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38044,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38042\/revisions\/38044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}