"Stories in the Details" is an exhibit Salt Lakers should be eager to investigate.
Artists Susan Beck, Meredith Moench and Bonnie Sucec allowed Ric Collier, director of the Salt Lake Art Center and curator of the exhibit, to assemble pieces from their oeuvre that both captivate and puzzle."The show really came about last fall when I came to town and was real anxious to meet some of the artists from the community," said Collier in an interview. "I had seen a piece by Bonnie Sucec and a piece by Susan Beck at Phillips Gallery, and I asked Bonnie (Phillips) to introduce me to the artists."
One afternoon, within a two-hour period, Collier visited both Sucec's and Beck's studios. "I was really knocked out by what I saw because they reminded me so much of the artists I'd had an affinity for when I was in Texas."
In January, Collier met Moench. "We were at this Chinese restaurant having this long conversation, and I became enamored with Meredith, her conversation and how she articulated being an artist." Collier asked to see some slides and quickly decided the three women were a natural for a combined exhibit. "Later I discovered all three had their studios in the Guthrie Building," he said.
Beck entices the viewer to frolic in a surrealistic landscape of twisted, double-jointed, squatting women. Her works are graphic and firmly rooted in '80s art. "Look at Her Now" (acrylic on plywood) has the muddy palette of Baselitz and the same guttural strength.
Painting on plywood, Beck often emphasizes the wood's natural grain or creates a faux grain pattern of greater contrast. The bodies she renders on the wood are mysterious and totemic.
Her most intriguing and powerful piece in the show - and certainly the one to cause the most heated discussion - is "Born to Worry" (mixed media on plywood). This repulsive "Venus of Willendorf," with its mammoth breasts, stomach and thighs, mocks the politically correct woman of the '90s. Or does the '90s woman mock our Venus, stranded on the plywood scrap with her shriveled arms and puffed-mummy face? Looking closer, there is hurt behind her glazed eyes. She appears to need us more than we need her.
Other powerful works by Beck are "The Last Blue Water" and "Futility of Magic" (both acrylic on plywood).
Moench's work is occasionally tinged with guarded feminism. In her "The Fisher King" (mixed media on paper) a female form saves a male form. In "Earth Meditation: Completion" (mixed media on paper) she employs a repeated stencil image of a naked bimbo that is a dream of every typical male-chauvinist pig. This pattern appears to be submerged under swirling water that reflects the dismembered image of palm fronds. Moench continues her cryptic communication in two other, very similar works: "The Importance of Grace" and "Wild Bones" (both mixed media on paper).
All of Moench's work utilizes the pencil; her drawing skills are more than evident. But just as one of her tightly drawn mosaic or geometric patterns threatens to overtake a piece, the visual tedium is cut asunder by a languorous line. In "Love's Silent Companion" (pastel and graphite on paper) the sensuous arc of a line defining a breast and midriff can be physically felt.
Sucec's paintings are constipated geography recently discharged, a visual mayhem suffused with surreal meaning, detail and color. Her use of ubiquitous match sticks, some spent, some not, makes for superb patterns and motifs, especially in "Women Wait" (acrylic on canvas).
Her "70 On a Boat Are Missing" (gouache on paper) is a convoluted, visual puzzle, painted with amazing control. With its splashes of color, it is a visual powerhouse.
"Approval by Higher Bodies" and "Out of the Black and Into the Blue" (both gouache on paper) are quintessential Sucec where the bizarre environment beckons and we willingly go. She is simply incredible.
Amazingly, these three women, who have known each other and worked in the same building for 15 years, have never exhibited together. "It doesn't matter if you look at a work by Meredith and then walk over to one by Susan," said Collier. "There's a relationship there that I think comes out of the fact that they've been friends and have been in proximity to each other."
The details of their story and their art makes "Stories in the Details" a memorable experience.