{"id":97973,"date":"2025-11-07T07:23:56","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T14:23:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=97973"},"modified":"2025-11-07T08:02:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:02:48","slug":"relative-truths-turns-art-into-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/relative-truths-turns-art-into-inquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Relative Truths Turns Art Into Inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gallery<\/a>

Installation view of Relative Truths at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, with a painting by Pamela Beach in between two paintings by Zhang Xi. Image courtesy of Utah Museum of Fine Arts.<\/p><\/div>\n

With university faculty art exhibitions, there is rarely a throughline\u2014a main theme or narrative that ties all the disparate works by different artists together\u2014and the UMFA\u2019s Relative Truths<\/em>, seems, at first, to be no exception. There are several stated themes\u2014isolation, division, contested histories, cultural anxiety, dismantling of human rights, persistent creativity of the human mind\u2014and each can be found in more than one work. But a word that came to mind throughout the gallery, and might pull it all together, was \u201cquestions.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Each piece poses\u2014explicitly or implicitly\u2014a question to the viewer that can open a new thought pattern, give a new perspective, or challenge our conventions and beliefs of what is real or true. Some of the labels include extended information and end with questions to contemplate. Some of the questions are particularly timely, like Sydney Porter Williams\u2019 \u201cThe Fall,\u201d 2023, an installation with a tattered sweater hanging above empty pill bottles and flameless candles. The piece immediately brought to mind a social media post I\u2019d just read about the poster\u2019s sister who was unhoused and had not shown up for a family birthday. How can a person with a family that cares about birthdays have a member who lives on the streets? Porter Williams\u2019 piece may not ask this specific question, but its implications of the pain and suffering of a person\u2019s fall from the \u201cnorms\u201d of society are powerfully communicated with a handful of found objects.<\/h4>\n

Another timely question regards the use of AI in art. Martin Novak\u2019s \u201cSame As It Never Was \u2013 Memory #1,\u201d 2024, is, as the label reads, an AI-assisted digital composition, enhanced and manipulated with Adobe Photoshop and upscaling software. The color tones, the roses, and the sailor uniform ooze the vintage portrait we want this to be. The figure\u2019s face, though, is too perfect, too cold, and too jarringly contemporary to be a sailor from WWII. But the question here is not whether this is real or true. It is whether we need it to be a true memory of a real person. Novak has shown his hand in the title and media listing, but what if he hadn\u2019t? Would we think this was Novak\u2019s grandfather? Which one would be real art\u2013a photo of the real grandfather or this perfect young sailor built inside a machine? And does it matter if what we\u2019re seeing here is a finely detailed, pleasing-to-the-eye image, whoever or however it came to be?<\/h4>\n
\"A<\/a>

Edward Bateman, “Anges et Filles (Angels and Girls), Paris, 1860,” 2025. Image courtesy of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.<\/p><\/div>\n

Intriguing in another way, is the work of Edward Bateman. Bateman\u2019s \u201cAnges et Filles (Angels and Girls), Paris, 1860,\u201d 2025, presents as a Victorian-age set of images of young girls with what are presumably angel sculptures. But the \u201csculptures\u201d are too human to be sculptures. Again, the sepia tone and darker borders indicate vintage photographs, making us question what we see. The figures seem to speak to now, not 1860. Reviewing Bateman’s university faculty page, it is noted that \u201cthrough a use of constructed and often anachronistic imagery, he creates allegedly historical artifacts that examine our belief in the photograph as a reliable witness.\u201d That point is made beautifully albeit with what must be hours of painstaking, detailed digital work. The complexity of his process yields a richness of empathy and admiration for all his figures and places they appear in, real or imagined.<\/h4>\n

In a traditional scientific journal format, Carol Sogard\u2019s \u201cOrganic and Man-Made Remains of a Former World,\u201d and its accompanying inner pages, \u201cQuimper Peninsula,\u201d and \u201cThe Ashen Earth,\u201d mimic a similarly Victorian passion\u2013botanical study. This time, though, the botany is our own detritus from a technology-crazed contemporary society. The presentation of these bits and pieces of our metal and plastic world in the design of a finely crafted, rare book of specimens is both engaging and depressing. What are we leaving for future populations to dig up in archaeological explorations? Can documenting these items help us process the loss we feel watching our natural world choke on these same items?<\/h4>\n

There\u2019s beauty in all of the questions posed in Relative Truths.<\/em> Vanessa Romo\u2019s \u201cMeditations on\/in feminism and\/in art\u201d questions our preconceived ideas about the need to \u201cview the world as polar\u2026beauty\/grotesque, femininity\/masculinity, empathy\/apathy, opinion\/fact, and human\/thing.\u201d She uses muslin dyed with saffron to create a net of woven rings, knots and fringe, which is covered in a thin coat of porcelain as an exposition on gender roles. It also juxtaposes an industrial form with a delicately fragile beauty on its surface. The label with the piece asks the questions: \u201cHow often do you consider the things around you? How can they be paired with another unlikely object? How does the meaning change for you?\u201d<\/h4>\n

Several works stand out with subtle questions and exceptional presentations. Emily Tipps\u2019 \u201cWorthyTrashWorthyTrashWorthy,\u201d presents paperback pages and letterpress prints as rolls of toilet paper on a stand. Paul Stout\u2019s \u201cFuture Extinct Bird Skull,\u201d looks like an accessory for someone\u2019s nightclub outfit presented in a specimen bell jar with a lovely dark wood base. Maureen O\u2019Hara Ure\u2019s \u201cThe Middle Ages\u201d and \u201cTrouble in Mind\u201d are mixed media paintings with expressive ink linear designs that make them feel like Japanese woodblock prints. Michael Hirshon\u2019s two gicl\u00e9e prints are actually digital drawings made as limited edition NFTs, but they have the look of travel posters (although the flaming dirigible in \u201cToo Big to Sail\u201d doesn\u2019t look like a fun trip).<\/h4>\n
\"Gallery<\/a>

Installation view of Relative Truths at the UMFA, with works by Simon Blundell, left, and Edward Bateman. Image courtesy of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.<\/p><\/div>\n

Simon Blundell\u2019s \u201cShe Opened Up a Book of Poems,\u201d and \u201cFrom the Sky Down,\u201d both 2025, are digital montage photographs printed with dye sublimation and mounted on aluminum. The printing process itself creates the rich, bold colors and sharp definition of the images and, perhaps, the aluminum surface adds to that sheen as well. The two works blend the latest technology with imagery that depicts the beauty of nature, challenging our idea of how to present a landscape from a new perspective.<\/h4>\n

There are some truly captivating paintings in the show. Zhang Xi\u2019s \u201cSophie\u2019s World,\u201d and \u201cThe Jump Rope,\u201d are rich with bold colors and active compositions. Pamela Beach\u2019s \u201cNow Pretend I am on a Leash\u201d has great patterns and texture along with more bold colors, though with a slightly sinister youth-at-play content. John Erickson\u2019s \u201cWestern Space\u201d takes a horse in typical Western-art gallop and adds pop art elements like black-centered white rings and an abstracted expressive background. V. Kim Martinez\u2019s \u201cTantalus-Blood Falls\u201d uses the vinyl paint Flashe to great effect, bringing the paint\u2019s notoriously bold colors and matte finish to an almost sci-fi, cartoon-like image.<\/h4>\n

The work in the exhibition that takes up the most wall space is also one that comes most in line with our current cultural environment, albeit telling a story of the earlier 2000s. Henry Becker and Kevin Thomas\u2019 \u201c20\/20 A Retrospective of Two Decades at War,\u201d from 2022, comprises 20 prints on newspaper hung in a grid on wires with binder clips. The prints follow a chronology from September 11, 2001 to August 30, 2021, when the last U.S. servicemen left Afghanistan. The artists share that the images reveal \u201chow actions at the highest levels of government and in our own backyards have changed the way we live, how we interact with one another as people and cultures, and what it means to be an American.\u201d A fitting question for our time, for all time.<\/h4>\n
\"Gallery<\/a>

Henry Becker and Kevin Thomas, \u201c20\/20 A Retrospective of Two Decades at War,” 2022, in Relative Truths at the UMFA, through Jan. 4, 2026. Image courtesy of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.<\/p><\/div>\n

Relative Truths<\/em>, Utah Museum of Fine Art<\/a>, Salt Lake City, through Jan. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With university faculty art exhibitions, there is rarely a throughline\u2014a main theme or narrative that ties all the disparate works by different artists together\u2014and the UMFA\u2019s Relative Truths, seems, at first, to be no exception. There are several stated themes\u2014isolation, division, contested histories, cultural anxiety, dismantling of human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1736,"featured_media":97974,"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":[4144,208,4760,3572,4758,1103,2970,4759,832],"class_list":["post-97973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-carol-sogard","tag-edward-bateman","tag-emily-tipps","tag-henry-becker","tag-martin-novak","tag-maureen-ohara-ure","tag-simon-blundell","tag-sydney-porter-williams","tag-umfa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/202509_Relative-Truthsfaculty-exhibition_30-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 02:29:24","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\/97973","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\/1736"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97973"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97983,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97973\/revisions\/97983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}