The folks at Julie Nester Gallery in Park City have a healthy appetite for abstraction, but they tend to make sure it’s about something. The poster child for their Autumn Show, Newport Beach painter Chris Gwaltney’s “Carnival Ride (book reading chairs),” not only includes the title pair of […]
There’s an assumption widely made that, by definition, a portrait must have an essential relationship with the identity of its subject. It discloses the identity of the individual whose portrait it purports to be. Yet there is nothing necessary about that connection, especially in the subtle and powerful […]
When it comes to the cultural significance of the West, there are at least three versions—the Mythic, the Romantic and the Real—and each version can more or less apply in either the past or the present. The Myths of the West might best be found in pulp literature, […]
Cultivated Surfaces, the name of Nathan Mulford’s new show at “A” Gallery (where it is surrounded by the recently reviewed works of Jeff Juhlin and Halee Roth, among others) is without doubt one of the finest exhibition titles to come along in a while. To understand why, it […]
Many who are susceptible to its charms consider Zion to be possibly the most beautiful of our national parks. While the nearby Grand Canyon is better known, Zion inverts its effect, becoming much more intimate. We approach Grand Canyon from the top and gaze down in wonder. Zion […]
On walking into the Street Gallery at UMOCA and seeing the paintings of Elizabeth Malaska for the first time, they just might appear—and there may be no more accurate word—grotesque. Consider “Oracle,” which is the closest to the entrance. Three women sit close, their backs to a table […]
The title of Kellie Bornhoft’s Artist-in-Residence exhibition, Touchstone, 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 […]
Visual artists are not like musicians. A musician will practice making sounds every day. She may tell you that if she misses even one day, she can hear the difference; that after two days, her colleagues can hear it; and after three days, the audience will know it. […]
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Maya Angelou’s flawless quatrain receives a response in Stacy Phillips’ Let’s Get Personal: Faces of Humanity, currently on view at Finch Lane. […]
Who is suffering? At some point in the life of a family assaulted by dementia in one of its many forms, this question may emerge in a rare moment of clarity. While the loss of mental acuity and the capacity to both recall and comprehend one’s own life […]
Brian Kershisnik is among the more generously talented artists presently on the Utah scene. Not only does he paint and make prints, but he writes songs that he then performs and records with a group of musicians. From there, he made the natural leap to poetry, which he […]
It was just over a year ago, in August of 2024, that Halee Roth debuted in a two-artist exhibition at her local venue, which happens to be the Bountiful Davis Art Center. Recalling those large abstractions, mixed media fields of flawlessly controlled color articulated in depth by map-like […]
Julie Nester and her staff have chosen women as the focus of their current show, the title of which, She Roars in Color, gives a good idea of why. This is not the opening salvo in the next battle of the sexes; rather, it might be in recognition […]
In reference to works of art, “calligraphy” is often used as an adjective. For example, we say a certain artist’s line quality is “calligraphic.” But of course fine hand-lettering is a visual art form in itself, one inclusive of language, but also able to function apart from it. […]
Spend a little time with the gifted, itinerant street painters on YouTube and it soon becomes apparent that almost anything can become the support for a painting, from a guitar to a guitar case, or a laptop’s cover, or even an inexpensive, mass market oil painting on canvas. […]
Whoever wrote that art is not progressive—that it doesn’t advance as artists learn how to better express themselves and pursue their goals—certainly didn’t look at the way the century of Surrealism has progressed. When, in 1924, André Breton published his Manifesto of Surrealism, he spoke to artists who […]
Alissa Landefeld is one member of a small-but-mighty segment of the Utah arts scene. Originally from Montana, she started out to be a biologist, earning honors at UVU and traveling the world to connect with other students of the science of life. She found, however, that her urge […]
Walking upright on two legs is arguably the most essential human trait. Walking—and the vertical posture that enables doing it—are believed to have freed early hominids’ hands to develop and exploit fine skills, which in turn called on their brains to grow larger and more versatile. Walking thus […]
