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"Giving everyone their fifteen bytes of fame"
September 2002
Page 4
TRASA'S Emerging Women
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. . . Although many of the works were technically competent, they often lacked cohesion of feeling or thought. Each work seemed to point the viewer in many directions, so that all that was communicated clearly was the decorative quality of the work.

An exception was "Spilt Milk," a large painting, about 4' tall by 3' wide, by Teresa Lane. This painting is both beautiful and creates a clear sensation of mystery through its color and the way the paint was applied. Its most striking device is the use of a piece of linoleum as part of the painting surface. The linoleum is patterned like a Turkish carpet, and the painting includes other references to floors. The artist uses a limited palette of colors, and the painting is generally a glowing, translucent dark red.  Near the lower center is a small translucent white image of what appears to be a cake or cheese with a slice removed. Although I did not understand the reference to spilt milk, the painting is gorgeous and somewhat mysterious.

Kathleen Ferdon 'Earthly Delight' Watercolor on Paper
Another successful work was Kathleen Ferdon's painting "Earthly Delight" -- an unpretentious little watercolor confected of colorful dancing rectangles. It is completely nonobjective, and uses a shallow space and juxtaposition of colors and sizes to create a lively and delightful effect.

Other works, though ambitious in design, are less successful in result. "Medusa" by Olivia Glascock is an attractive mixed-media book about 8" square, with a stiff folder to contain it and a beaded bracelet placed next to it.
The green marbled inside of the folder and the printed end papers of the book are sumptuous, as are the delicate rice paper and gold pages inside. The decorative "S"-shaped snake in brass relief inset into the book cover adds to the book's opulent appearance. The contents of the book are a few delicate drawings of a pretty female head with snakes for hair. This "Medusa" is shown in several mental and physical states. The drawings look like overexposed photos. Medusa herself looks wan, effete and powerless.  Instead of the muscular serpents that usually adorn Medusa's head, the snakes in these drawings look as innocuous as worms. In Greek mythology Medusa was a powerful Gorgon whose eyes turned anyone who looked into them to stone. Clearly Glascock's Medusa

Olivia Glascock 'Medusa' mixed-media book

represents a Medusa shorn of her power, and by its opulence the book indicates that this is a precious image. This pretty, sickly Medusa saddens me, and her presentation as something precious is sadder still. Perhaps the beaded bracelet was left by the Greek Medusa to re-empower her eviscerated sister?

"Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Linda Woodruff Bergstrom consists of a large sheet of clear plexiglass divided into two sections.  On one half of the plexiglass sheet is a frontal relief of a large male torso, from waist to neck, made or cast in gauzy cloth stiffened with a clear medium. Inside the rough, generalized, translucent torso is a light, and the cloth extends beyond the edges of the torso in vague waves.

On the other side of the plexiglass, printed in gold, is a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo," in English translation from German, with no translator noted. The poem begins:

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs.

The gauzy relief torso in Bergstrom's work is indistinct, unexpressive, and certainly not beautiful. It is cut off at the waist, as if to exclude the sexual implications of the description of Apollo's hips and thighs in the poem. The light within the torso is a literal representation of Rilke's words, ". His torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside like a lamp."

This work is a lesson in the difference between art and not art. On the left is the Rilke poem: rich, suggestive, sensual, and definitely a work of art. On the right is a literal representation of a part of the poem, with all of the flavor and wonder of a box of cereal. The torso is dull, and does not attempt to parallel the feeling of the poem. The result is an interesting lesson in the meaning of "art," but as a work of art in its own right it is too pedagogical for my taste.

A number of the paintings and drawings in this show are signed in very odd ways. For instance, there is a lovely watercolor of a winter landscape composed in horizontal bands. In the front is snow, then winter dark trees, the rolling hills with a bit of color, and above a wet into wet painted winter sky with clouds. Sounds pleasing, does it not? However, the artist has signed the painting twice on the field of snow, in lines thicker than the lines of the trees. This places the signatures in the very foreground, and makes them the most important part of the painting visually!

On the second floor of the TRASA building is graffiti from a previous show.  It was there that I saw the most ambitious work displayed. A large L-shaped wall covered with a very abstract expressionist graffiti caught my eye.  There is an underpainting of what looks like blocky and pointy word forms in mostly purple, blue and yellow. This layer of painting has a kind of shallow, rectangle based three dimensionality. Over that are painted orange squares, words, and balls and ball-like cartoony heads. The surfaces in the balls and heads are white, with colored lines around the balls and used for the drawing in the heads. The second layer of painting seems to float over the first, once again in a shallow abstract expressionist type space. The work gave me feelings of energy and vertigo. It is like the child of a Jackson Pollack and the comics.

TRASA did the arts community a great service to take a chance and produce an exhibit like “Emerging Women.”  Unfortunateley, the show was disappointing overall. However, the work of emerging artists is not expected to be completely formed. I hope each artist will continue to clarify her vision and expression, and that we will see work that is more powerful and exciting from these artists in the future.


TRASA is located at 741 S. 400 W SLC (Gallery Hours: Thurs. and Fri. 5-8 PM, Sat. 12-5 PM) at the former Utah Pickle Co. building. Look for the graffiti sign painted on the building to find it.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: To read a response to this review sent by Linda Woodruff Bergstrom click here.
Exhibition Announcement -- Ogden
WHAT'S UP AT THE ECCLES
Jamaica Trinnaman 'Voyage'

Jamaica Trinnaman of Alpine will be exhibiting a collection of her works in the Eccles Community Art Center’s Main Gallery. In the Carriage House Gallery new works by Nancy G. Clark will be featured. These exhibits will open Friday September 6, 2002. A reception for the artists is scheduled the evening of September 6th between 6 and 9 p.m. in association with the Historic 25th Street Stroll. The public is invited. The exhibits will continue through September 28th.

Jamaica, who received a Bachelor of Science in Art with an emphasis in painting from USU,  tells us that “Art is much what it was to me when I was twelve - a place where I can say or do what I please. A place to play or scream, cry or kiss, dance or be still. It is a place where life becomes a visual thing, a composition, a liquid work on drying canvas. It is a flat picture filled with depth of emotion, a moment with a lifetime of building up to, a structure or wood and fabric taking on flesh and bone and thought and mood. My work is nothing more than my thoughts, my experience, and my opinion. A reflection of a woman’s life and imagination. I try not to limit myself in my work, I allow myself the luxury of switching mediums, subject matter and even the way I paint.”

Nancy G. Clark is a California native, who moved to Utah with her husband seven years ago. Since moving to Utah, she has joined the Eccles Community Art Center, The Palette Club of Ogden and has become a two-star member of the Utah Watercolor Society.

Nancy says “My work has evolved in the last seven years. I work in acrylic, gouache, mixed media, collage, oil pastel, charcoal and printmaking. My paintings have grown more abstract with inspiration from the mountains and canyons around me. “Mood” is what I am after in my paintings, and I’ll use whatever medium that best achieves it.”

Nancy Clark 'Canyon7'
The Eccles Community Art Center is located at 2580 Jefferson Avenue in Ogden. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.; Saturdays 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. The Center is open to the public admission is free.


Exhibition Announcement -- St. George

SILENT NO LONGER – Art speaks loudly for animals.
Silent No Longer, an exhibition of works by Cyrus Mejia, is on display in the Legacy Gallery of the St George Art Museum until October 4th, 2002.
Cyrus Mejia, contemporary artist, is one of the founders of Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. His art reflects the mission of Best Friends, to help bring about the day when every dog and cat born will have a loving home, and there will be no more homeless pets.

Mejia’s show features recent paintings of animals, viewed from above, looking up at us. By painting their faces larger than life and putting them up at eye level, Mejia brings a view that’s often over- looked, sharply into focus.

cyrusmejia

The exhibition also features an installation of several works from The 575 Project, created by Mejia in 2001. Last year five million unwanted pets were put to death in U.S. shelters -- 13,800 every day, 575 dogs and cats killed every hour. In the tradition of the Holocaust Museum and the Aids Quilt, each piece in the 575 Project is a memorial to the 575 unwanted pets that were euthanized each hour last year.

St George Art Museum 47 East 200 North, St George, UT. Admission is free. Museum hours are: Mon. 6-8pm; Tue. -Thurs. 11-6; Fri. 11-8; Sat. 11-6; closed Sundays and holidays.