{"id":62865,"date":"2022-03-25T00:11:53","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T06:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=62865"},"modified":"2022-04-01T12:46:19","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T18:46:19","slug":"maureen-ohara-ures-elsewhere-travels-to-a-menagerie-of-interior-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/maureen-ohara-ures-elsewhere-travels-to-a-menagerie-of-interior-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Maureen O’Hara Ure’s Elsewhere Travels to a Menagerie of Interior Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

“Elsewhere,” mixed media on panel, 24 x 86 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

I entered Phillips Gallery last week with a little shiver of anticipation: there\u2019s a solo show by Maureen O\u2019Hara Ure, one of the most original and interesting artists working in Utah today. And I was going to get to talk to her about it.<\/h4>\n

Art, for O\u2019Hara Ure, \u201cis more malleable than language.\u201d She does do some writing but likes \u201cthe privacy of visual art because people either don\u2019t get it or get it wrong. I can say in a painting what … I\u2019m not ready to say out loud and clearly in sentences.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Elsewhere<\/em>, running until April 8, is a challenging, witty, exhilarating exhibition whose works can (but really should not) be viewed online. The imaginative creatures and birds featured in most of the paintings seem to breathe when you are with them, taking on a life of their own. O\u2019Hara Ure says that she is willing to be misinterpreted: whether from someone talking about \u201cthose cute little animals\u201d or finding a piece, \u201cso dark it creeps me out.\u201d But the scenic \u201cMemento,\u201c featured on the gallery announcement card, is illustrative of what she truly does: \u201cIt is influenced by a Roman era fresco a hundred years before Pompeii,\u201d explains the artist.<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

“Trouble in Mind,” mixed media on panel, 21 x 14 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

Elsewhere<\/em> picks up where O\u2019Hara Ure\u2019s 2019 show at Phillips left off. Some of the influences from art history and the ways she manipulates surfaces will be recognized by those familiar with her work. For example, she does a lot of sanding on her paintings on sturdy panel, sometimes revising over years. Nothing is considered finished until it is sold. \u201cI slowly build up an image, obsessively laying down marks in thin, sanded layers of paint, ink, and pencil. When a work returns to my studio from a show, I set it aside, but eventually I may begin to tinker with the piece, first sanding out, painting over just a section. Often as not, I keep going and start all over, erasing any memory I have of the image.\u201c<\/h4>\n

\u201cElsewhere,\u201d the titular (and stellar) 24 x 86-inch mural, was first worked on in 2007 but fell off the guest-room wall last year, \u201csignaling the need for further work.\u201d (The lambs in that piece, shown in detail on the gallery website, come from a mosaic in Ravenna, Italy.) \u201cMy process is as reductive as it is additive. So, I\u2019m taking off as much as I\u2019m putting on,\u201d she says. (Her layers also show up well on \u201cTrouble in Mind\u201d and \u201cSurrender\u201d \u2014 the fetching painting of a standing bear that she describes as a self-portrait, as are the numerous other bear images in this exhibit. The artist identifies with the whale in \u201cIn Plain Sight\u201d as self-portraiture, too.)<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

“Surrender,” mixed media on panel, 11 x 14 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThese paintings, all developed within the past two years, represent my attempt to make sense of \u2014 to give some shape to \u2014 these new and very confusing times,\u201d she writes. For a couple of decades, all of O\u2019Hara Ure\u2019s major projects began with travel (restricted during the pandemic era) \u201cwith my drawing in museums and at historical sites overseas. In each case, my travel sketchbooks focused on pre-Renaissance art and architecture. I returned to the studio and set about using the raw ideas in the sketchbooks to begin developing new work, feeling free to take liberties with the historical material I collected,\u201d she told me a few years ago.<\/h4>\n

In most instances, O\u2019Hara Ure now barely recalls the precise images she started with, though she usually seems to know their source. She says that \u201cInside, Looking Outside\u201d is \u201calmost a Covid piece \u2014 I worked until the last second on it.\u201d She discusses the central lioness, and sources all the dozen or so different birds in the work. With the disturbing \u201cHurt,\u201d however, where a catlike creature appears to gnaw on its own leg in pouring rain, the artist only recalls the source as \u201cmedieval.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cTrouble in Mind\u201d is described by O\u2019Hara Ure as \u201ca vertical landscape\u201d that was prompted by an old email. Recalling, she says, \u201call the stuff that had happened [in Salt Lake City]: a windstorm .,, an earthquake and making it all manageable and safe again by making a painting about it.\u201d<\/h4>\n
\"\"<\/a>

“Hurt,” mixed media on panel, 20 x 16 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

She starts out with layers of gesso and works a lot of things all at once, \u201cso if you go into the studio there will be eight things stretched out \u2014 I may touch down on eight or 10 surfaces and most things don\u2019t work and then I put stuff away \u2013 I find it again.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Her studio is at the University of Utah, where O\u2019Hara Ure is a Professor Lecturer. Since 1990, she has taught such courses as Art for First-Year Studio Majors, Drawing I, and Senior Seminar. She has received numerous grants in support of her work.<\/h4>\n

About \u201cThe Art of Conversation,\u201d a delightful work featuring two large birds seeming to chat in a garden setting, though one has its bill in a knot \u2014 the artist says her point is that \u201cwe need to listen.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Something I have done avidly now for an hour or so, learning about this richly rewarding show from its creator, keeping the gallery\u2019s Meri De Caria and Hadley Rampton long past closing.<\/h4>\n

Elsewhere, by Maureen O\u2019Hara Ure, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City, through Apr. 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I entered Phillips Gallery last week with a little shiver of anticipation: there\u2019s a solo show by Maureen O\u2019Hara Ure, one of the most original and interesting artists working in Utah today. And I was going to get to talk to her about it. Art, for O\u2019Hara Ure, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":62866,"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":[1103,157],"class_list":["post-62865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-maureen-ohara-ure","tag-phillips-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/MAUR195_Elsewhere.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 16:27:26","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\/62865","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\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62865"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62880,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62865\/revisions\/62880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}