{"id":43967,"date":"2019-04-22T08:50:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T14:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=43967"},"modified":"2019-05-15T14:26:26","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T20:26:26","slug":"the-mystery-and-melancholy-of-spring-paintings-by-lindsay-frei-and-trent-call-at-15th-street-street-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-mystery-and-melancholy-of-spring-paintings-by-lindsay-frei-and-trent-call-at-15th-street-street-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mystery and Melancholy of Spring: Paintings by Lindsay Frei and Trent Call at 15th Street Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lindsay Frei, “Surplus Satin,” 36″ x 36″<\/p><\/div>\n

Simmering with spring are the sumptuous studies of empty pink- sateen ballgowns painted by Lindsay Frei at 15th Street Gallery. In \u201cFormal Facade\u201d and \u201cSurplus Satin,\u201d our eyes dip and swoop into hanging, empty bodices, imagining the feel of the satin, drinking in its color like palest of strawberry ice creams, studying its carefully enfolded and sewn-in back zippers, the etherlike blue shadow behind them, wondering if the day this dress was worn by a young woman was a day of dread, or delight, or both.<\/h4>\n

These two oil paintings are so wonderfully evocative, so wondrously done, we could look at dozens of them and not be weary. Somewhere in one woman\u2019s life story is this springtime, highly structured, pink satin gown.<\/h4>\n
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Lindsay Frei, “Internal Dichotomy,” oil, 26″ x 30″<\/p><\/div>\n

Then Frei takes us to be with a woman with beautiful bobbed dark hair (surely also the one in \u201cSolitary Submersion,\u201d bathing like Cleopatra in a white tub) sitting on the floor gazing toward but not directly at a mirror; it is as if she has been distracted by a sound. She looks well beyond sateen debutante gowns. She wears a beautiful silky blouse with a flower pattern of all colors; these flowers look like ones hand-painted on silk umbrellas in old Japan, or hand-painted on teacups. In the mirror, we see reflected from the opposite wall perhaps a framed image of European rooftops, in gold and brown and grays. Germany? England? Long ago or now? Is it a real scene in a window, or is it a painting of European buildings and roofs? A real background, or a wish to be there, expressed by a framed painting?<\/h4>\n
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Lindsay Frei, “Promenade Turn,” 26″ x 30″<\/p><\/div>\n

And in yet another, \u201cPromenade Turn,\u201d perhaps this same young woman steps confidently toward her apartment door; she is clearly going out, on her head a hat almost like a Roman centurion\u2019s helmet, almost plumed, perhaps a fantastical creation by the artist, or perhaps real. Under an arched, distant window at the end of the room is another woman, huddled and plain, at a desk, her back to us, bathed by the light of the enormous window, which she looks out toward. This painting seems to represent the two halves of an artist: one emboldened by her artistic career, striding out dramatically dressed, to socialize; the other staying home, deeply private, as all artists are, eschewing, as they often must, the typical social world.<\/h4>\n

On the other side of 15th<\/sup> Street Gallery are Trent Call\u2019s paintings: half of them brave, crisp, stylish nudes, the most imperious of them, \u201cCenter Mantel,\u201d hung beneath the gallery\u2019s tall glass-blocks window, a woman standing in front of a modest fireplace mantel, one arm resting on the mantel, her feet on the black-and-white checkerboard linoleum on the floor, giving it all a classic Westminster Abbey gravity.<\/h4>\n
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Trent Call, “Center Mantel,” oil, 36″ x 36″<\/p><\/div>\n

Call loves to play with squares and angles: many paintings by him not on display in this show are shot full of them: cupboards, soda machines, repeated doorways, old telephone booths. One of his most pleasing paintings here, \u201cPicnic Burger,\u201d is a small simple square portrait of a burger and fries; you can feel Call\u2019s delight in the red-and-white real-cloth tablecloth, which has as much pink in it as red and white; his delight with the gold of the French fries (gold is scattered all throughout the painting, as if in ecstatic echo); the intense red of the ketchup; and, the decisive half moon of the burger patty peering from its paper wrapping, almost like a planet about to be born.<\/h4>\n

It is Call\u2019s style to modulate each brushstroke with a stutter-shimmer of movement and varied color, so it is perhaps not an attempt to give anonymity to his models that their eyes and facial features shift and dodge almost as if identity-hiding software was used in a photo to provide anonymity: it just happens.<\/h4>\n
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Trent Call, “White Pickup,” 36″ x 36″<\/p><\/div>\n

The nudes are cheerful, playful; sadness is in Call\u2019s street scenes. In \u201cWhite Pickup\u201d a truck is parked beside a wooden fence beside an old building with windows that are somber dun, indicating either they are boarded up or their window shades completely pulled down, their dull color signaling perhaps the fading memories or perceptions of the original owner of this truck. Two startlingly green young trees thrust their leaves into the air, but they seem to have grown by accident here, or have been planted simply because it is expected every building must have at least two trees around it, to look civilized. They seem to have little room to grow. Once, this truck, we see, had some crisp red pinstriping; now, its pinstriping is in stuttering fade.<\/h4>\n

More sadness is in \u201cEmpty Cafe\u201d; here, cheap construction has been quickly and easily humbled by time: above is swaybacked electrical wire, leading to a once-lit sign, making it look like an abandoned ship at sea, its sails fallen away. Above the sky is a tired blue like a many-times-chipped cup.<\/h4>\n

Tired, tattered blue is over \u201cOK Garage\u201d too; the old tire store seems to beg for company, hoping for the lonely and lame from the road, a sort of rescue pier. Someday spring will come to these lots: these buildings will be replaced by others. But their dejected state makes you wonder what happy places they once must have been, and how proud many may have been to have their livelihoods there, once, in their heyday.<\/h4>\n
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Trent Call, “Ok Garage,” oil, 24″ x 36″<\/p><\/div>\n

Spring is also at the front barrier reef of 15th Street Gallery: multitudinous necklaces, earrings, bracelets, scarves. Personal adornment expresses hope, and hope-filled too are the large very silvery trays and bowls, to adorn houses and parties and gatherings; everything\u2019s ready to begin all over again, turn the wheel. It\u2019s spring.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lindsay Frei and Trent Call: Paintings, <\/em>15th<\/sup> Street Gallery<\/a>, Salt Lake City, through May 11.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simmering with spring are the sumptuous studies of empty pink- sateen ballgowns painted by Lindsay Frei at 15th Street Gallery. In \u201cFormal Facade\u201d and \u201cSurplus Satin,\u201d our eyes dip and swoop into hanging, empty bodices, imagining the feel of the satin, drinking in its color like palest of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1568,"featured_media":43976,"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":[979,2064,1220],"class_list":["post-43967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-15th-street-gallery","tag-lindsay-frei","tag-trent-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/freicall.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-29 20:51:10","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\/43967","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\/1568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43967"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44288,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43967\/revisions\/44288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}