Exhibition Review: Salt Lake
First of All, She's Colored
V. Kim Martinez at Art Access
V. Kim Martinez paints the sort of pictures that viewers may, on the basis of a photo or hearsay description, smile at briefly but refuse to take seriously as art. Others will reject these partial fantasies on sight because of choices she’s made about what to idealize and what to keep real. But these reactions are unfair to Martinez, who is both a serious artist and a very good painter, and will cheat viewers out of a deeper, transformative experience. The seventeen Mujeres de Colores on display at Art Access this month rewrite hegemonic history, incorporating myth, mass culture, and prevailing prejudice into an alternative vision that elevates the mundane even as it skewers illusions about status and illuminates social values. They walk adroitly through the surprisingly narrow space between deification and mockery. Hanging alongside, a dozen preparatory drawings provide a window into the artist’s technique that will dispel any doubts about how deeply her vision penetrates the bodies she paints.
Organization Spotlight: Provo
The Tradition of Artistic Freedom
Provo's Bridge Acadmey of Art
by Ehren Clark
The Bridge Academy of Art, in Provo, is set to open later this month. Founders and instructors Jeff Hein, Justin Taylor, Ben Mcpherson and Sean Diediker, began the Academy an experimental institution that proposes to endorse the "Classical Tradition without excluding the insight and advancements of the Modern Art movement." As their mission argues, "It seems that in today's subjective world of art, many artists lack the academic skills to open their work up to limitless possibilities." The instructors at the Academy seek to securely set a new standard whereby those who wish to take part in this unconventional institution may enjoy four years of rigorous training to gain a mastery of the fundamental tools of art, and thereby become imbued with a greater artistic freedom.
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Exhibition Review: Springville
The Sight of Conflicting Voices
J. Kirk Richards at Springville
by Tony Watson
J. Kirk Richards is one of a number of talented young figurative painters in the area who, now in their thirties, are beginning to attract large followings, command substantial prices and receive acknowledgement in significant exhibitions. Richards is currently being recognized by the Springville Museum of Art with a one-person exhibition in one of their main floor galleries. All very recent works, Richards paintings explore religious/spiritual themes and display the artist’s adept visual skills employed in differing manners that reveal an aesthetic -- if not religious – search for a voice.
Utah has long been known as a haven for representational art, continuing instruction in traditional techniques and forms when other places around the country were abandoning them in favor of more experimental art. Sometimes this tradition was strongest in the illustration departments of our institutions of higher learning, but a new generation of full-time, fine artists -- like Jeff Hein, Sean Diediker, and Kirk Richards --has infused this tradition with new blood. These artists excel in the craft of drawing and painting, and are receiving attention for it. Nationally, trends in contemporary art look more favorably on representation, and locally, after years of advancing his collection of 20th-century Russian impressionists/realists, Vern Swanson has developed a strong market for figurative and narrative works. Utah, with its LDS market, has had a long interest in narrative figure painting, and both Hein and Richards produce works dealing with Judeo/Christian/Mormon narratives and themes. Hein splits his time between highly-colored, design-oriented figurative work, and religious works that draw upon a different aesthetic, that of the academic schools of the 19th-century. Richards is more strictly a painter of religious themes, but even within this single genre, as this exhibit demonstrates, the artist is experimenting with different techniques and modulations of style.
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