{"id":96717,"date":"2025-10-07T12:33:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T19:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=96717"},"modified":"2025-10-15T21:29:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T04:29:49","slug":"where-minerals-remember-us-the-elemental-art-of-kellie-bornhoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/where-minerals-remember-us-the-elemental-art-of-kellie-bornhoft\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Minerals Remember Us: The Elemental Art of Kellie Bornhoft"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The title of Kellie Bornhoft\u2019s Artist-in-Residence exhibition, Touchstone<\/em>, begins by making an important distinction. So much of art today takes as its subject the natural world, but we tend to choose a narrow, selfish form of nature. We presume that nature is best, or even exclusively seen in biological form, like plants and animals, while far more of the natural world is composed of minerals. Our bones and teeth, such as the tooth that appears like a specter, rotating on the wall of the gallery, are primarily composed of calcium, which is one of the more common elements and a part of many compound minerals that interact in nature. Meanwhile, all life on Earth depends on the carbon cycle. Carbon is also geometrically the perfect molecule, which allows it to form everything from the carbon ring that is essential to organic chemistry to a diamond, the hardest substance in existence. These chemicals partake of dramatic interactions, like those that produced coal, oil and fossil fuels and compare well with the drama and complexity of our invented myths and sagas.<\/h4>\n

The large, sculptural elements in Touchstone<\/em> are comprised, Bornhoft tells us, of \u201csixteen of the most prevalent minerals found in the human body…in the same proportions as found in the body.\u201d Formally, each takes shape in three or four haphazard, translucent sheets sandwiched together and supported by a split black rock, all this nested on a russet sand dune. Closely resembling each other and distributed around the gallery, they display the theoretical characteristics of two mineral forms: naturally occurring ones like crystal clusters and living organisms given a common appearance by their DNA.<\/h4>\n

The work of the artist in residence is presumably influenced by contact over time with numerous guest artists and the staff of the museum, so it\u2019s rare for a single idea to dominate the climax exhibition. Touchstone<\/em> is no exception, but features four largely independent, yet complementary bodies of work. In addition to the sculptures, there are three sets of projections that appear on the wall. These are quite charming and produce an effect that possesses more than a little magic. Other viewers may have sought out and quickly identified their sources, but I accepted them without question until I saw my overall photographs, in which I could see the projection system that I\u2019d semi-consciously ignored in the gallery.<\/h4>\n