{"id":60242,"date":"2021-10-14T23:41:30","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T05:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=60242"},"modified":"2021-10-14T23:41:30","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T05:41:30","slug":"darryl-erdmann-the-artist-in-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/darryl-erdmann-the-artist-in-depth\/","title":{"rendered":"Darryl Erdmann: The Artist in Depth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Divinations”<\/p><\/div>\n

There is something fundamental that Darryl Erdmann has in common with his mixed-media artwork, “Divinations,” one of the dozen of his paintings currently on view at the 15th Street Gallery. Divinations are visions drawn from life, such as entrails read by priests of old. And just about everything in “Divinations” was something else first: a sewing pattern and the negative part of a lettering stencil can be readily identified, while other parts look to be left over from other projects. Anyone familiar with Erdmann\u2019s life story, one he shares with many artists, should see the pattern. The son of a farmer, he grew up around Brigham City while learning to make useful and necessary things with his hands. Later he became a musician, concerned with rhythm. Then, an interest in art led him to a career in the graphic qualities of signs, which mean to communicate quickly and clearly. A fan of 1960s conceptual interiors, he later sold both high-end designer furniture and art: two forms of merchandise that tend to blend. Each of his skills employs the residue of the things he learned along the way, until he became the maker of content-rich, accessible abstractions.<\/h4>\n

In lieu of titles, some abstract painters number their works, which at least is better than a whole gallery full of paintings identically labeled “Untitled.” Others title their works with a dominant emotion they hope to evoke, like desire or yearning \u2014 which if the artist is any good should make two very different paintings \u2014 or lend the minimal identity necessary to be able to talk about them without waving their arms about and saying “the one with the big green square.” With that dilemma in mind, it\u2019s possible that Darryl Erdmann might be hard-pressed to explain the difference between, say, “Anthem” and “Ploy” as titles for two of his abstractions. But in his case, the titles are neither meaningless nor wanting character. An anthem is an ambitious piece of music; a ploy is a determined bit of strategy.<\/h4>\n

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