Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
The early 20th century was a period of rapid innovation in Western art, with artists seeking to break free from the representational shackles of the past. In the scrum of early modern painting that was Paris, Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890–1973) was one of the few Americans who stood out, […]
The half-dozen large, brilliantly mis-colored images by Diane Tuft currently on view, mostly at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) but at least one at Modern West, could almost be Color Field paintings, if they didn’t contain so many photographic hints and clues. There’s another, also at […]
The abstract paintings of Los Angeles artist Audra Weaser, now on exhibit at Park City’s Julie Nester Gallery, bring to life an interplay of introspection and the subtle dance of nature. Due to a blending of acrylics and metallic elements, the dozen canvases shimmer with an internal light, […]
There is one portrait figure by Irene Rampton that stands out at Phillips Gallery. “Mom and Me Out On the Town” differs in the way it observes not the unique look of a sole figure, but includes two women who are as noteworthy for their similarities as for […]
Egyptians, Romans, and Europeans all painted landscapes in order to simulate perfect nature in their homes throughout the year, or even for eternity. During the reign of Britain’s Queen Victoria, the invention of the greenhouse made it possible to introduce the public to galleries filled with exotic, actually […]
Along with form and content, composition and dynamics, color is one of the expressive building blocks of art. But color can also be as elemental and essential as those stand-ins for truth: Black and White. At the Eccles Art Center in Ogden, the 18th Annual Black and White […]
Above the steel stairway that connects the upper and lower galleries at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, for the duration of the current exhibition, a large monitor displays, in a continuous loop, recent satellite images of Great Salt Lake by UMOCA preparator Jeff Griffin. Watching the lake’s […]
There are things in life that are predictable, normalcy that we can expect, bringing security in the ordinary. Dirt, for example, is often, quite literally, below our notice. It is a guarantee of firmness beneath our feet, allowing us to step with little thought or worry. In Hózhó […]
Kent Christensen is an acclaimed artist, illustrator, and designer as comfortable in New York City and London as he is Sundance or the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City. For more than four decades he’s been making art from all of those places, as we see in […]
Among the more persistent and valid criticisms thrown at creators, critics, curators, and collectors of the art world alike is this: Your art is not for anyone except yourselves. Blustering indignation aside, the message stings because, in some cases, maybe even many, it’s true. Artworks abstracted beyond all […]
Flanked as it is by the Jordan River Parkway’s tangle of box elder, cattails, and saltgrass, the Day-Riverside branch of the Salt Lake City Library is a fitting venue for the vibrant riot of nature in the paintings of Jerry Clifford. A native of Northwest Michigan, Clifford became […]
Tears are made of salt water. Grief is love. Whatever I have come to know as love and grief, I have learned from Great Salt Lake. -Terry Tempest Williams The fate of Great Salt Lake is hardly more than a footnote in the longer story of how immigrant […]
Often, when an artist with a well-established, familiar, even popular mode decides to undertake something new, the news travels fast. So, many who gathered at David Ericson’s gallery in the Avenues for the unveiling of Emily McPhie’s new work were there in anticipation of something they’d not seen […]
Bené Arnold, a seminal figure in Utah’s dance community and Ballet West’s first Ballet Mistress, passed away on January 25, 2024, at the age of 88. Arnold’s legacy is marked by her significant influence in shaping the careers of countless dancers at Ballet West and the University of […]
In the hierarchy of values, materials such as ink, marble, uranium, and gold are worth less than the alchemical power of art. And art, in turn, is less valuable than life. This may help explain why the collages of Liberty Blake, though made of paper—and often of discarded […]
Bountiful may not be known as a mecca for fine art, but Ramble Gallery is hoping to change that. On Main Street, at the edge of Bountiful’s Historic District, and a short 4-minute walk from the Bountiful Davis Art Center, Quin Boardman, Dave Trevino and Brodie Poll have […]
Given the level of skilled technique we so often encounter today, it’s not all that unusual to learn that what appeared to be a photograph is actually a painting. The only reason this took until now is that for centuries the masters didn’t have photos to mimic, and […]
Comprising 12 individual watercolors pasted to panel, Aloe Corry’s “Care Instructions,” is representative of her narrative approach to art. Words frequently appear in her work, but in the case of “Care Instructions,” the gestures of the hands propel the narrative. The panels depict a step-by-step process for bandaging […]
