Up and Upcoming: To The North
Exhibition Listings in Northern Utah
BOUNTIFUL
BDAC UP: Featured and Ethnic Artists from Summerfest International, highlights ethnic artists living in Utah.
This year's featured artist is Japanese artist Kiyomi Doi, who now lives in Davis County. Through September 26. AND: Quilts from the Salt Lake-Ogden Long Art Quilt Guild,
a non-profit organization that provides a network in which the beginner to advanced quilter can meet with fellow quilters. Through September 26.UPCOMING: illustrators Utah! returns to BDAC and this year features:
A life drawing workshop with renowned illustrator and BYU professor, Robert Barrett;
Original artwork from the collection of Paul Mann featuring Hall of Fame Illustrators including Tom Lovell, Joe Bowler,|0| Robert Fawcett and Robert McGinnis.
Artist demonstrations by professional illustrator. September 16 - November 4. AND: In the north gallery paintings by local artists Lester B. Lee and Aaron Bushnell.|1| Lee is a well-known artist, illustrator and retired high art educator. Aaron Bushnell, a Bountiful resident, is a nationally known artist who sells his paintings widely, and recently won first place in Southwest Art's 21 under 31 competition. September 16 - November 4.
VERNAL
Western Heritage Art Museum UP: 10th Annual Uinta Basin Art League Exhibit. Members of the Uinta Basin Art League will exhibit fine art in various media -- oil, acrylic, watercolor, woodworking with exotic woods and more. Opening reception, Thursday, September 8, 6:30-8pm. Through October 1.
BRIGHAM CITY
Brigham City Museum UP:
Peach Days Art Exhibition, 59 works by Box Elder County residents, selected by juror Marion Hyde. Through September 22. AND: Local Artist Spotlight: Ned Young.
Through September 22.
LOGAN
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art UP: New Acquisitions highlights a selection of the museum's recently acquired artwork. Through January 6, 2012. AND: Bang! Thwack! Plop! %#$&!!!
Comics: an Influence on Contemporary Art explores the intersection of comics and art with specific attention on how certain themes and stylistic forms have crossed over from the genre of comics into the world of visual art. This exhibit helps point toward a growing interdisciplinary trend in the arts that allows for a flow of ideas between media and form, creating a liberation of high art. Through August 31, 2012.
OGDEN AREA
Eccles Community Art Center UP: Wildlife paintings and western art by watercolorist Bob Child |2| and stoneware pottery by Coalville's Jim Simister, owner of Sunstone Pottery, in the Main Gallery. Through September 24. AND: Utah Farms & Gardens, an exhibit of the watercolors of Pam Christiansen-Simons of Pleasant Grove in the Carriage House Gallery.|3| Through September 24.
Gallery 25 UP: Utah Images, a themed group exhibit, showcases the diverse beauty of the state with works by Lucile Chamberlin, Keith Dabb, Keith Dagley, Carol Fielding, Lauri Eskelson, Roberta Glidden, Darlene Hamblin, Phil Hopkins, Dan Ludwig, Mac Stevenson, and Doug Wride. Through September.
Mary Elizabeth Dee Shaw Gallery (Weber State University) UP: Edward Burtynsky: The Industrial Sublime. Burtynsky's large-format color photographs explore our impact on the planet (see page 1).|4| Through November 22.
Gallery 51 at Union Station UP: Works by Rebecca and Clay Wagstaff.|5|
PARK CITY
from 6 to 9 pm. This is a free event. Wrap up your evening with a Fashion Show after-party at the very-chic Silver Restaurant and Nightclub at 9 pm.
Kimball Art Center UP: Lori Campbell: Horizons. In this series of thirty contemporary landscape paintings, Lori Campbell focuses on horizons. Campbell is fascinated by the contrast of light and shadows in the sky and on land.|6| By applying thick layers of paint and thin glazes, she builds up rich textures and creates depth in her luminous paintings. In the Garage Gallery through September 25. AND: In-Betweens: Work by MFA Visual Arts Students from the University of Utah. Participating Artists: Anne Boyer, Van Chu, Jan James, Nick Mendoza, Carmen Paredes, Andrew Rice, Kirsti Ringger, Adelaide Ryder, Heidi Moller Somsen, Tyler Spurgeon. In the Badami Gallery through September 25. AND: Works by mentors and residents participating in a 10-day artist-in-residency program |7| (see page 1). Through September 11.
JGO Gallery UP: Jewelry exhibit by gallery artists.
These listings only include fine art exhibitions. If you are looking for information on lectures, art talks, classes, workshops, calls for entries, employment opportunities and more, visit our message board.
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Gallery Spotlight: Park City
JGO on the Go
Park City's Gallery of the New West
by Sheryl Gillilan | photos by Simon Blundell
Last fall, Jude Grenney and Curtis Olson |1| found themselves with lots of art and nowhere to hang it. The former part owners of Phoenix Gallery in Park City watched as their building was sold to make room for a restaurant. Undaunted, however, Grenney and Olson have rented two different spaces on Main Street and opened JGO Gallery in February, 2011. The name is a composite of Grenney’s two initials and one of Olson’s, though the latter claims that the shape of the logo also surreptitiously incorporates a “C.”
The main gallery space is located in a former furniture store and was the original home of silver mining offices in the late 1800’s. The back entrance opens directly off Swede Alley,|2| while the front entrance requires one to descend several steps below the level of Main Street.|3| While the space could be depressingly subterranean, it is in fact the opposite. The gallery space is well lit and welcoming, with warm floors and bright, vibrant art.
Grenney has been selling art on Main Street in various locations for twenty years, and Olson is a former architect who branched out to fine art. Their vision for the gallery is to appeal to artists and collectors who are tired of the traditional Western art fare, but who still very much embody Western traditions and values. “We wanted a more contemporary feel for the New West ideal,” Grenney says. “It’s Western art with a twist. We appeal to people who like open spaces and nature, but have progressive attitudes about what they want in their art.”
So what does that mean? Mostly, it means JGO features artists like James Georgopoulos, who creates larger-than-life silver gelatin photographs of Western cinema guns and then coats them with gleaming resin. Or Vanessa Clarke, who creates both watercolor paintings and stone sculptures with abstract looping, arching shapes and forms.|4| Her stone sculptures almost always include large portions of negative space in a manner reminiscent of bones, perhaps a nod to her New Mexico landscape.
Then there’s New Orleans artist Nicole Charbonnet, who views her work as a palimpsest – she alternates putting down layers of words, images, paper and watery washes of paint with scratching portions of them off again, so her finished work is both a literal and metaphorical creation over time. Charbonnet’s work at JGO uses iconic Western images “as a way of exploring our past and present perceptions of
ourselves and others, which comprise and form our identity as members
of a society, or citizens of a country that once again seems to be in
transition and in the process of redefining its values, agenda and
role in relationships.”
JGO also features some Utah artists, including Paul Vincent Bernard, David Ruhlman, Carole Wade, Greg Ragland and Olson’s own work. Grenney says these artists are also taking traditional Western fare and making it their own. For example, she notes that Bernard takes the wide open places of the West and renders his version in large blocks of painted and etched color,|5| whereas Ragland creates abstract paintings with anachronistic images of wildlife.|6| Olson also reexamines Western spaces with his combination colorful abstracts and black and white images, and Wade paints Park City scenes with broad brushstrokes and blazing colors.
Overall, Grenney and Olson think of their gallery as representing three different areas: fine art; fine jewelry (“Sparkle and Bling”) featuring American Craft Council and international jewelers;|7-8| and small unusual art displayed in cabinets – essentially a fine art version of Victorian curiosity cabinets wherein collectors showed off their treasures from home and abroad.|9| The latter area at JGO is still unfinished, but is called the Wonderbox and is located in the former silver vault in the main gallery.
The second JGO gallery space is located at the bottom of Main Street and is only 550 square feet. It is a light and airy space with high ceilings that opens onto Easy Street restaurant’s patio. This small gallery currently features the same artists as the main gallery, but will be the future site of revolving exhibits once JGO is more established.
JGO Gallery currently has gallery openings approximately once a month, with one or two in the summer months. It is located at 408 East Main Street in Park City.
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