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| 15 BYTES: December 2017 Edition |
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Artist Profile: Bryon Draper
He has an ageless sort of face, with piercing blue eyes and curly, light brown hair. As he sits at a neat desk, a few papers piled on one side of the keyboard, a pencil tucked behind his ear, his process is clearly visible in the setup of his studio: rugged rocks piled on the floor, wax models consigned to a corner, a large table in the center and a one-third lifesize model of a male arm on a metal bar near the far wall. Bryon Draper's sculptures seem to come together before the eye, rocks finding bronze as they assemble and blend in beautiful compositions. The works can be inventive and rugged, organic and graceful but, above all, are honest . . .
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Anna Betbeze
The hide-like abstractions in Dark Sun cling to UMOCA's gallery walls, sagging slightly as they loom over the viewer with a deranged, yet mysteriously beautiful presence. Betbeze's irregular painting surfaces are wool rugs that the artist burns, tatters and douses with ink and industrial acid-dyes. Vibrant colors bleed and stain each grisly surface, which seems to undergo a powerful transformation of either regeneration or decay.....
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UT '17
It's not clear whether, in "Line," Heather Stamenov went from image to idea or idea to image. Her image of nature as amusement park combines two familiar things into something ominous, adding another point to the argument that a work that has either an idea or an image cannot really avoid acquiring the other. As the Rio Depot continues its antique task of facilitating such reciprocating journeys, the art will continue to far outperform whatever we can say about it....
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Joseph Paul Vorst
Art has a history, but it is also a form of history. Walking through the Joseph Paul Vorst retrospective in the Church History Museum's galleries, it may seem that in the works of this artist we see art not as the history of society's winners, but of some of its losers: those left out, yet who deserve to be included. So it may be no wonder that his vision of the world wasn't universally popular among those who initially received it. If that's true, Vorst may be that rare artist a later, better-informed audience can bring back, and who in turn brings the world-a world he saw so clearly-back to life as well...
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The Interpretation Thereof
In the 20th century, the plastic arts' illustrative possibilities became passé, if not taboo, with critics like Clement Greenberg declaring a Hegelian march away from illustration so the visual arts could shed themselves of subsidiary roles and affirm their own essence. Greenberg's ideas linger, like a discarded orthodoxy that continues to haunt one's thoughts, but in the pluralistic present, styles and strategies abound. As this exhibit at BYU' s Museum of Art attests, artists are able to use many of these to explore their own interpretation of scripture...
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Author Profile: Scott Abbott
With Immortal for Quite Some Time, Scott takes full responsibility for his childhood disgust and his discomfort and his vulnerability. As a reader, I get to relax and observe him as a strange and mysterious creature, worrying about things in curious and inexplicable ways. Scott Abbott turns the heterosexual, privileged male into something queer. Strange and ruthlessly complex. Relentlessly seeking the origins of his fears and loathings, of the mechanisms of his silences, of the gorgeous mysteries of sex and human longing. And though he is a rather statuesque man, seemingly cast in bronze and comfortably secure in his social standing, easily imagined as a Renaissance painter or a John Ford character, his manners, his writing, and his being are all struck from many different dimensions. This makes his personhood and his work both vulnerable and fearless. He's a man willing to lose the privilege he never really wanted in the first place....
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Snow Faculty
Compiling faculty shows is a balancing act between honoring the artists' personal styles and still telling a story with an exhibition. An artistic gem in this genre can be found in Sanpete County, in the form of the 2017 Snow College Visual Arts Faculty Biennial Exhibition. It's a hodgepodge of more than a dozen artists coming together to explore media, faith, fantasy, and urbanization. Snow College may be a small institution located in a small town, but these artists are dealing with some really big themes in their artwork...
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Table to Table
In the rush of the holiday season it can be easy to get caught up in the commercialization of the winter. However, the holidays are also the best part of the year to spend time with family, express gratitude, and look for ways to serve. For the past couple years, artist James Rees and wife Maribel have used the holiday season as a time to gather food and donations for Table to Table, a cause they care about-food shortages in Venezuela...
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Remembering Suzanne Simpson: 1954-2017
Whenever I think of Suzanne Simpson, I think of sunshine. And on learning of her passing from breast cancer on Nov. 3, I find that I still do. We first met more than 20 years ago, when I was working at the photo mecca of Borge Andersen & Associates. She was one of the first artists in this area to work digitally - and made remarkable work that was like nothing people had ever seen. She was something of a perfectionist (a good thing in an artist); she always had a vision of exactly what she wanted. And while this could make challenges for us to produce it, she always brought such energy with her that I would look forward to having her in the lab. She made you want to be around her...
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