FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 20, 2017
Contact: Kandace Steadman
FINCH LANE GALLERY PRESENTS THREE ARTISTS, THEIR OBSERVATIONS, AND THEIR ARTISTIC RESPONSES
Salt Lake City—The Finch Lane Gallery presents late summer exhibitions with artists Yidan Guo, Laura Sharp Wilson, and Janiece Murray. The exhibitions run August 11 through September 22. An opening reception will be held on Friday, August 11 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Yidan Guo, a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Painting in Beijing, studied traditional Chinese portrait painting. Her goal in painting “is to not only show what I have seen and felt, but also to share the deep emotions that I tried to depict of my models,” she says. When Guo works with a model she is able to “see an individual’s authentic face through mindful observation and conscious feeling. My portraits are a way of revealing a state of mind that is shared by every human being, a common concern about the meaning of happiness, fulfillment, mortality and eternity,” she continues. Her work blends Chinese tradition with influences of Western art into a “cultural universality” in her exhibition Watercolor: East vs. West. Guo is an adjunct faculty member in the Art Department at Southern Utah University. She will present a gallery talk on Friday, August 11 at 5:30 p.m.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, an installation by artist Laura Sharp Wilson, presents a language of “accumulated inheritance” to explore the facts of racism, elitism, and classicism in this county’s past and present. Those objects of inheritance include linens, silver, wallpaper, china rugs, and clothing, jewelry, and shoes— items that she believes separate people from one another. She takes the title of the exhibition from Bernie Taupin’s song of the same name, with emphasis on the line, “You can’t plant me in your penthouse/I’m going back to my plough.” Wilson’s centerpiece of the installation is a large platform boot from which spills a yellow brick road. Additional items in the exhibition include works on paper and other mixed media pieces. Wilson is also known for her recent completion of the terazzo floor of grand lobby at the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theatre. It is called Thread, Trail, Rope and Yarn.” She will be giving a gallery talk about her work on Friday, August 11 at 6:00 p.m.
Watercolor artist Janiece Murray uses drafting tools such as a compass and straight edge to create geometric patterns and designs for her exhibition Unity and Difference. The circle in her work is seen as a symbol of unity but it can also be the beginning of thousands of geometric designs. “One of the things that I love most about these designs and patterns is that the possibilities seem to be endless,” she writes. “I’m constantly surprised at the amount of unique designs I’m able to create, but there are many similar examples in nature of unity and diversity.” She parallels her work to the human race: there are billions of individuals with the same basic makeup and yet no two people are exactly the same. Art, she concludes, is relevant to so much more than mere beauty.
What: Finch Lane Gallery Exhibition featuring artists Yidan Guo, Laura Sharp Wilson, and Janiece Murray
When: August 11 through September 22
Where: Finch Lane Gallery, 54 Finch Lane in Reservoir Park
Finch Lane Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with additional evening hours during the Salt Lake City Gallery Stroll on August 18 and September 15 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. All events are free of charge. For additional information, contact the Salt Lake City Arts Council, 801.596.5000 or visitwww.saltlakearts.org
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