In past years, the month of April has brought with it a number of exciting exhibits. And this year is no exception. During the first week of April, more than 16 new shows opened. And many of them are hot!
The Sixty-sixth Annual April Salon, always a popular exhibition, is now at the Springville Museum of Art; a pre-Colombian jade and gold show is being spotlighted at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts; and the Annual Student Art Show can now be seen at Brigham Young University.The Third Black-and-White Competition opened April 6 at the Eccles Community Art Center in Ogden; and a show featuring oil on paper by Susan Fleming and photography by Dorothy Greenland opened the same day at the Finch Lane Gallery.
But the exhibits I would like to feature today are new shows at the Dolores Chase Gallery and the Salt Lake Art Center.
- Anyone who hasn't stopped by to see Dolores Chase's new gallery is missing a treat. Located at 260 S. 200 West, the gallery is colorful, well-designed, and a perfect backdrop for the creative work of Chase's stable of artists.
The space has been cleverly divided into six galleries. And each one has a name - the RHC, WBC, Triangle, Peek-through, Petite and Back Galleries.
The RHC Gallery (the initials of Chase's father) contains prints and photography. The WBC Gallery (the initials of Chase's mother) features gifts and box art.
The long wall running diagonally through the center of the space is called the Gallery Wall. Currently hanging on this wall are paintings by Hal Douglas Himes. Chase said that when a featured artist has too many works for display here, his works will "wrap around the corner into the Triangle Gallery."
Chase is currently spotlighting new and retrospective work by gallery regulars. Appropriately titled "In a New Light," it contains a number of absolutely marvelous works of art.
One of the first paintings you'll see when entering the gallery is Himes' large and colorful "Tabernacle."
Walking through the gallery, you'll also be attracted to oils on paper and multi-color etchings by Barbara Madsen; large, abstract paintings by Layne Meacham; and works executed in a variety of mediums by Edith Roberson. In addition to her popular trompe l'oeil paintings, there are realistic, stylized, abstract and impressionistic works. Roberson also enjoys making bas-relief box sculptures out of Polyfoam and other materials.
Other gallery regulars are Gregory Abbott, Robert Bushar, Debbie Drennen, John Evans, Steven Griffin, Brian Kershisnik, Bruce Smith, Adrian Van Suchtelen, Theodore M. Wassmer, Evelyn West and Michael Woodbury.
This group show will continue through May 12. Gallery hours at Dolores Chase Fine Art are noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday. For further information, call 328-2787.
Chase's new location provides free parking both in front and behind the gallery.
(BU) Four outstanding artists, all of whom are past recipients of the Utah Arts Council's visual artist fellowships, are currently displaying a number of recent works in "A View of Four" at the Salt Lake Art Center. They are Lee Udall Bennion, Allen Bishop, David Dornan and Moishe Smith.
Each of these artists has developed a style markedly different from the others.
Allen Bishop combines small, irregular-shaped canvases filled with bold, bright colors. Each section can be removed and rearranged to create other designs.
When titling his works, Bishop comes up with words you won't find in your dictionary - "Triebula," "Trivibora" and "Jyx." From a distance, "Helminthid Zang" looks like a parrot. One woman viewing the show looked at "Yellow Yoldia" and asked, "Is that a canary?" Only Bishop can answer that.
Anyone looking at Lee Udall Bennion's oil paintings would say that the artist focuses on portraiture. However, the artist states, "Although I primarily paint the figure, portraiture is not my main concern. My paintings deal with form, color and feelings foremost."
Bennion's figures, like El Greco's, are elongated. Faces, most of them self-portraits or paintings of her daughter, Adah, look directly at the viewer. Two interesting exceptions are "Waning Moon," and "Some Still Want the Moon."
Moishe Smith is internationally known for his etchings. Included in this display is one of his newest black-and-white intaglios, "Outside the Walls." Completed this year, it's a striking print, thanks to Smith's sensitivity to value. He has formed a focal point by allowing the sunlight to fall on only a section of the city.
Smith is also exhibiting some of his color lithos and monotypes.
David Dornan is still fascinated with jars, paint cans, brushes and palette knives. But these objects are not placed randomly on the canvas, but in such a way to create a strong, cohesive composition. His colors are generally subdued, but in his painting "Marachinos II," he has introduced a bright-red color.
The exhibit, titled "A View of Four," remains in the Main Gallery of the Salt Lake Art Center through June 2. Art lectures by artists involved in this exhibit will be held at noon on the following dates. Wednesday, April l8 - Lee Udall Bennion. Wednesday, April 25 - David Hayes, exhibiting artist of companion exhibit "Blue Buddhas, Red Radar." Other art-lunch lectures will be held on May 2 and 16.
In conjunction with the exhibit, the Utah Arts Council and the Salt Lake Art Center have published a catalog to document the artists' work. Designed by Michael Hullet, it contains essays written by Peter S. Briggs, Angelika Pagel, Jerry Schefcik and Will South. Also inside the catalog are black-and-white and color reproductions of some of the artists' works.