{"id":74974,"date":"2024-05-14T12:55:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-14T19:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=74974"},"modified":"2024-06-05T14:42:01","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T21:42:01","slug":"voices-of-the-vanishing-scotty-mitchells-endangered-animal-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/voices-of-the-vanishing-scotty-mitchells-endangered-animal-portraits\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices of the Vanishing: Scotty Mitchell’s Endangered Animal Portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/h4>\n

A muse is what the ancient Greeks called it: the voice that inspires the artist. The Celts had Brigid. For the Christian artist, there\u2019s the Holy Spirit. The Hindus have Saraswati. For Scotty Mitchell<\/a>, the voices speaking to her came from an entire menagerie. \u201cOne morning, while drinking my coffee in a meditative state,\u201d the artist says, \u201cthese words just dropped down from the ether\u2026 ‘Look at us, for we will be gone.\u2019\u201d It was the impetus for a series of panels depicting endangered animals, 50 of which are now part of an exhibition at The Leonardo, in Salt Lake City.<\/h4>\n

This series of what are, essentially, portraits, is a departure for an artist who for decades has spent her career depicting the landscape, generally working en plein air<\/em> in the desert and mountains of the American Southwest. Though now living in northern New Mexico, for 20 years Mitchell made her home in Boulder, Utah, where she demonstrated herself to be adept at capturing the light of the golden hour as it caressed hills of sand and stone.<\/h4>\n

Executed in pastel, her preferred medium, the works in Look at Us<\/em> are uniformly square, looking like so many headshots, the animal shown from bust level, staring directly at the viewer with few background references. Portraits. In marketing material, several have been ganged together, resembling a set of commemorative stamps, but for The Leonardo exhibition, they are hung two deep across five walls in a small temporary gallery near the museum\u2019s entrance. The installation brings to mind Donde Estan<\/em>, a 2023 exhibition at the Sears Museum in St. George commemorating students disappeared in Iguala, Mexico.<\/h4>\n
\"A<\/a>

Mammals and birds from around the world are featured in Scotty Mitchell’s portraits of endangered species.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A view of the installation from The Leonardo’s escalators.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe feeling that I really needed to make this a reality was compelling,\u201d Mitchell says of the project. \u201cI felt and feel that the animals want to be seen, loved, and appreciated in all of their wondrous beauty and astounding diversity.\u201d Fifty distinct species are depicted\u2014realistically, without being hyper-realistic\u2014from the African Wild Dog to the Wrinkled Hornbill. Each is made individual, almost anthropomorphic in their presentation. The works have been left unglassed, so the pastels shimmer with a lovely, warm quality. However, because of the medium\u2019s unprotected state, the works are hung behind a series of stanchions (an understandable strategy considering the number of school groups that pass through the museum) that visually disrupts the whole and keeps the viewer separate from the viewed, almost as if one were at a zoo.<\/h4>\n

Viewed from the museum\u2019s entrance, this installation is introduced by a trio of paintings that appear on the outside of the installation: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the middle work, flanked by images of groups of animals resting in a natural setting. In the central painting, Eve looks away from her companion and the serpent in the tree, as if in shame; Adam\u2019s hand is outstretched, in welcome rather than rebuke. This biblical framing will ring true for some but disappoint others. For the former, it is a plea for stewardship of the animals humankind was asked to name. But others will think in terms of the \u201cdominion\u201d humankind was given over animals and think this might be part of the problem.<\/h4>\n
\"A<\/a>

A wall on the outside of rest of the installation frames the exhibit with a Biblical reference.<\/p><\/div>\n

Look at Us: Portraits of Endangered Species<\/em>, The Leonardo<\/a>, Salt Lake City, through June 1<\/p>\n

Images courtesy of the author<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A muse is what the ancient Greeks called it: the voice that inspires the artist. The Celts had Brigid. For the Christian artist, there\u2019s the Holy Spirit. The Hindus have Saraswati. For Scotty Mitchell, the voices speaking to her came from an entire menagerie. \u201cOne morning, while drinking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74975,"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-74974","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\/2024\/05\/goup-for-invite-1-1.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-23 18:27:52","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\/74974","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74974"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75551,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74974\/revisions\/75551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}