Exhibition Review: Salt Lake
Putting on Civility
Zane Lancaster at Art Access
by Analisa Coats BacallPainting's simultaneous appeal to both opticality and tactility is the source of the medium's seductiveness, it might be wagered. This duality is also the most absorbing aspect of I'll Pretend Not to Hate You, a prodigious new series of paintings from Zane Lancaster on display at Art Access beginning July 17. Inspired by election-year politics, the paintings are parodies of familiar yet not entirely recognizable figures of some power or status—as signified by the ever-present suit and tie—that have been spelled out in encaustic and egg tempera on panel.
The notion of language is quite relevant to a consideration of the series, given the artist’s fascination with codified gestures and common symbols. Still, wrestling with this system of language for viewers' attentions are the unique material qualities of the paint itself: encaustic, lumpy and coarse, representing for Lancaster "excess and consumption;" and tempera, flat and somehow matter-of-fact, yet strangely "obscuring and revealing" at the same time. Plainly, there's a lot going on in these paintings.
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Exhibition Review: Provo
Outside In
Frank McEntire forges an ecumenical LDS iconography
by Geoff Wichert
The best religious art of any time, like the important work in any subject matter, challenges its audience. The naked, physically powerful saints of Michelangelo shocked the Renaissance congregation, while the 1st to 2nd century transformation of Jesus from bearded elder teacher to youthful shepherd helped the early Christian community to reconfigure their prophet as a god. It's too soon to tell if what Frank McEntire calls a "reappropriation" of the Passion—a reference to the events surrounding Christ's crucifixion, death, and resurrection—will produce lasting works of art. But the work is of a quality and originality that demand serious contemplation, while questioning the way the LDS Church edits its biographical roots. These works ultimately challenge viewers to re-distribute the emphasis on three influential foundation texts: the Old and New Testaments and the Book of Mormon.
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