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 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.
The large, sculptural elements in Touchstone are comprised, Bornhoft tells us, of “sixteen of the most prevalent minerals found in the human body…in the same proportions as found in the body.” 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.
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’s rare for a single idea to dominate the climax exhibition. Touchstone 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’d semi-consciously ignored in the gallery.
Some of the projections are photos of rock crystals that rotate, seemingly floating in space. Others are animated drawings that draw and erase themselves. Mottos or aphorisms appear printed out: “the warmth in me remembers the fire in you” clearly evokes the primary clue to the presence of life, while “amidst not within” observes a fundamental difference between intermingled and juxtaposed bits of matter. My personal favorite is “permanence is a persistent myth,” a phrase that makes the point that nothing lasts forever—except change. All of these floating images come and go, appearing in different places over time. A soundscape that fills the gallery contributes something subtle to complete the sense of place.
Some in the audience will be completely satisfied by the experience of an otherworldly realm in which the mineral reality of nature so clearly reveals itself. Coming away from the gallery with a markedly changed awareness is, after all, a proper response to art. On the other hand, some will seek a narrative in the illustrations provided. Artists today know only too well that life began in mineral-rich places like the ocean and that life there, like life everywhere, is threatened today by planet-wide warming. But it’s not impossible that life on this molecular level will survive. Kellie Bornhoft remembers that the world can be a richer and more complex, even paradoxical event than we know, and in Touchstone she urges us to connect with it in a new and extraordinary way.
Kellie Bornhoft: Touchstone, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City, through January 3, 2026.
Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.
Categories: Exhibition Reviews | Visual Arts
