{"id":86090,"date":"2024-08-22T08:46:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T15:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=86090"},"modified":"2024-09-06T07:13:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T14:13:01","slug":"abstraction-and-reality-coexist-in-unexpected-ways-in-slcc-exhibits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/abstraction-and-reality-coexist-in-unexpected-ways-in-slcc-exhibits\/","title":{"rendered":"Abstraction and Reality Coexist in Unexpected Ways In SLCC Exhibits"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Installation view of “The Lesser Chaos” at Salt Lake Community College with, from left, Darryl Erdmann’s “Solo,” Juan Gasca’s “Figura Metamorfica”, Richard Taylor’s “A Certain State of Grace,” Rachel Henriksen’s “Dialogue of Opposites” and Martin Sanchez’s “In the Beginning.” Image by Shawn Rossiter.<\/p><\/div>\n

In a vitrine in the lobby of the Library of Congress lie the objects that were in Abraham Lincoln\u2019s pockets when he was shot, one of which is a pair of reading glasses repaired with string. Contemplating these real objects is about as close as one can come today to the physical reality of the 16th U.S. president. Over in the Smithsonian, there\u2019s a half-nude statue of George Washington, done in the Greco-Roman style, that is ten-feet tall. While its 12 tons of marble are real, the portrait is an abstraction. The title of the current exhibition in Salt Lake Community College\u2019s State Street gallery, The Lesser Chaos: Choosing Abstraction Over Reality<\/i>, refers not to the actual distinction between two modes of being\u2014a matter that still flummoxes philosophers and linguists\u2014but to a long-accepted division in art between two styles of representation. It\u2019s a difference that has fallen out of favor along the leading edge of art, leaving a vague distinction that the 37 paintings and sculptures in The Lesser Chaos\u2014<\/i>abetted by 17 more across the foyer in a companion exhibit, Games We Play\u2014<\/i>illustrate through a number of revealing examples.<\/h4>\n

A couple of paintings in Lesser Chaos<\/i> demonstrate the basics of abstraction. Cara Jean Hall\u2019s \u201cPowder Day Pine\u201d emerges from a realistic view of nature, from which individual details were removed even as an implied design was revealed. In addition, elements of the artwork\u2019s medium, like brush strokes, textures and stenciling, have been given emphasis equal to the organic design DNA gives the trees. The result has clearly been drawn from visible nature, with the trees\u2019 geometry extended into the sky just as light reaches down into the forest. In \u201cLeaves On The Water,\u201d Halee Roth abstracts the feeling more than the look of nature, which she achieves by using dye-based inks and bleach to produce aqueous effects that she punctuates with gold leaf. In places bleach literally draws color out of the ink, while overall the power of water to reflect or transmit light orchestrates a visual drama.<\/h4>\n