{"id":54180,"date":"2020-06-19T11:40:42","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T17:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=54180"},"modified":"2020-07-04T14:02:06","modified_gmt":"2020-07-04T20:02:06","slug":"54180","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/54180\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy Andruk Olson’s Teeming Mural at BDAC is Ignited by Nostalgia and Longing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Our relationship with the land is an ancient one, one as old as civilization. One device we have invented to navigate this connection is landscape painting, a genre dating back several millennia. As we approach a situation in which the delicate balance between ecologies becomes increasingly untenable, we ask whether the genre can survive and lead us into a more sustainable future. These issues are raised in a mural by Nancy Andruk Olson<\/a>, who is currently artist-in-resident at the Bountiful Davis Art Center.<\/h4>\n

To be sure, Olson\u2019s mural does not showcase the wastelands that have come to characterize the Anthropocene, nor does it school us in the perils of industrialization. Olson\u2019s vistas are the antithesis of those dystopias. Blending references to past and present, they hover between two historical moments, two visual regimes. On one hand, many of Olson\u2019s references are rooted in nineteenth century painting. With a horizon line that swings in and out of obscurity, references to William Turner (1775-1851) are unavoidable. Throughout Olson\u2019s compositions, any discernable boundaries between land and sky are erased, and are connected by great curtains of light, each feeding into each other, as if composed of the same physical energy. Even among substantive subjects (trees, rocks, etc.), colors bleed across contours, their edges dissolve and atomize into nearby life forms, suggesting the life-cycle itself. Similarly, the diminutive role of human and animal protagonists is also steeped in the Romantic tradition: a pair of rabbits, a flock of birds, an embracing couple: all are dwarfed if not entirely enveloped by a world that suggests the epic dramas of John Martin (1789-1854).<\/h4>\n

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Augmenting these devices is Olson\u2019s palette, which rejects any references to naturalism. Applied in lively, van Gogh-like brushstrokes, Olson\u2019s colors are neither realistic nor symbolic. Mixed by the artist and applied in watercolor, Olson\u2019s hues are supersaturated and range from the hyperreal to the fluorescent, creating worlds that are as intense as they are ethereal. Exemplary is a sloping field with undulating grasses, which spills down into a pond, where vermillion branches graze the water\u2019s surface and reeds protrude in acid limes and greens. Elsewhere, hillsides are teeming with fluorescent pinks, searing crimsons and solar golds, emanating light in every direction. The spectacle is equally daunting where cascading rapids capture the eye in ultramarine splashes and azure breezes. Clearly, these pigments depart from nineteenth century sensibilities. They are more in line with the digital palettes of David Hockney\u2019s “Yorkshire Landscapes,” made on the artist\u2019s iPad, or even Pippilotti Rist\u2019s “Pixel Forest.” A minor distraction can be found in the tiny couple engaged in unholy acts: the gendering of a woman in pink and man in blue could be described as \u2018binary\u2019 as their union blossoms into a magenta and heliotrope grove.<\/h4>\n

While Olson\u2019s iconography strikes a balance between past and present, her scenes are not easily placed and the locations remains a mystery. Olson\u2019s topographies make no overt reference to the artist\u2019s home state (Utah) where mountain, desert and red-rock languages reign supreme. In contrast, Olson\u2019s locations are not intended to be identified; she is interested in what she calls \u201cthe memory of landscape.\u201d As idealized, other-worldly oases, hers are a wish-fulfillment of world. Ignited by nostalgia and longing, her idylls can only be described as “Paradise.” Olson\u2019s landscapes are not about seeing, they are about imagining.<\/h4>\n

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Nancy Andruk Olson: Because I Am Still in Love With You<\/em> at Bountiful Davis Art Center<\/a> through July 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our relationship with the land is an ancient one, one as old as civilization. One device we have invented to navigate this connection is landscape painting, a genre dating back several millennia. As we approach a situation in which the delicate balance between ecologies becomes increasingly untenable, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1542,"featured_media":54183,"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":[2504,3722],"class_list":["post-54180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-bountiful-davis-art-center","tag-nancy-adruk-olson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/IMG_8490.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 02:51:46","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\/54180","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\/1542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54180"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54236,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54180\/revisions\/54236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}