"Feature" Robert Mellor

Exhibition Dates: April 27 – June 1, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, April 27, 2012 from 7-10:00pm

Robert Mellor’s paintings can be viewed as new propositions for visual enactment by the viewer, each work providing cues for engaging with the composition, layer by layer, edge by edge, line by line, color by color.  While it can be said that any work of art comes alive as art by a viewer’s active engagement, Mellor foregrounds this relationship by composing works of arresting beauty that compel viewers to re-enact the process of composition with the artist.

In his work Mellor often combines references abstracted from landscape and organic forms, cityscapes and architecture, and cascading fabric from fashion design in totally new ways. His astonishing and original color harmonies command attention and continually reward viewers who take a contemplative pause and convert compositional space into time.  Mellor is also the edge master, sculpting visual space with his hard-edge lines and interplay of forms, working at the edge of figuration and abstraction, building paintings from multiple layers that push the works into three dimensions as substantial objects in their own right.

Mellor has been developing a new body of work with ever more complex planes of space and compositional layers that reference traditional landscape imagery and multiple approaches to abstraction in highly original combinations.  He composes multi-layered paintings in acrylic in which the space of the painting is fractured through visibly cut overlapping planes.

His new paintings expand on his use of multiple planes and layers of space in figurative abstraction works that combine ground layers of ink washes on which the multiple layers of acrylic are imposed in sharp relief. Mellor’s original paintings are a set of enticements and seductions for viewers that make a bold, affirmative statement for new directions in painting today.

Robert has exhibited work in California, Washington DC, and Japan. He is originally from Massachusetts, and was educated in New York and California.

"untitled edifice" Stephanie Leitch

Exhibition Dates: April 27

Opening Reception: Friday, April 27, 2012 from 7-10:00pm

This installation is part of a series that seeks to uphold the aesthetic value of images in dominant culture while simultaneously subverting their purport of power. She is not interested in defacing or destroying, but rather extrapolating, isolating, inverting, and repurposing as a means of artistic edification. In this specific exhibit, Leitch has inserted one architecture onto another, interpolating ideas of place and purpose. In folding a document of space onto one that exists in real time, she is also exploring the hyper-real and notions of constructed realities. Ultimately, the aim is to emphasize form as the most prominent component, in order to universally welcome the viewer to be drawn into the layers of experience.

"To All the Sets I've Loved Before" Jared Steffensen

Exhibition Dates: April 27 – June 1, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, April 27, 2012 from 7-10:00pm

Jared Steffensen uses actions, objects, and the residual marks created by the act of skateboarding, that are central to its practice, and translating them into a visual language that is specific to contemporary art. He also incorporates an important aspect of skateboarding, the ability see the potential of objects, that serve a specific function in ordinary day to day life, to exist beyond their intended function (i.e. handrails, transitioned embankments, curbs, etc.). He further adapts these actions, objects and marks to facilitate their existence in a gallery setting.

Come join us on Thursday, April 12th, 2012 at The GARAGE on Beck St.   http://www.garageonbeck.com/

CUACtails are bimonthly informal parties in Salt Lake City sponsored by the Central Utah Art Center. CUACtails is in advance of exhibition openings @ the CUAC and an opportunity to meet & visit with local and resident artists from all over the world. Come and enjoy great company, good food & drinks and live music. The evening will be DJ’d by Shane Smith with a live musical performance by Futr Kids at 10:00pm

when: Thursday, April 12, 8:00pm-1am
where: The Garage, 1199 N. Beck St. Salt Lake City
what: dancing, drinks, live music, discounted pARTy bus tickets
who: 21+

when: Friday, March 30, 6-7:30 pm

where: CUAC, 86 N Main, Ephraim Ut

what: Pre-screening segments of Art21 Documentary Season 12

who: Everyone!! This event is free and open to the public!

The Central Utah Art Center, In partnership with Art21 as part of its Access ’12 initiative, presents a sneak preview in advance of the premiere of the sixth season of Art in the Twenty-First Century, the only prime time national television series focused exclusively on contemporary art, on Friday, March 30, 6-7:30 at the CUAC. The event features 3 segments from the award winning series and will run around an hour. This event is free and open to the public.

Art21 Access ’12 is an international screening initiative created to increase knowledge of contemporary art, ignite dialogue, and inspire creative thinking through hundreds of public screenings and events that tailor the ideas presented in series to the interests and concerns of local audiences. The season premieres on PBS April 13th with a new episode each Friday during the April and May at 9 pm (check local listings). Through in-depth profiles and interviews, the four-part series reveals the inspiration, vision and techniques behind the creative works of some of today’s most thought-provoking artists.

ABOUT ART21
Over the last decade, Art21 has established itself as the preeminent chronicler of contemporary art and artists through its Peabody Award-winning biennial television series Art in the Twenty-First Century. The organization has used the power of digital media to expose millions of people of all ages to contemporary art and artists and has created a new paradigm for teaching and learning about the creative process.

• 1st Place: Noah Coleman, Sisyphus
• 2nd Place: Bruce Case, Vessels
• 3rd Place: Daniel Barney, If the Odds Are Good, Take That Risk You’ve Been Considering

Daniel Barney

Bruce Case

Noah Coleman

Exhibition Dates: February 10 – April 6
Opening Reception: February 10, 7-10pm
CUAC Annex-The Pizza Gallery

Participating artists:
Clarissa Lewis Anderson
Maura German
Alex Jameson

Clarissa Lewis Anderson:

My work explores what is important to me as a woman and wife. Living in Provo, Utah, I feel surrounded by an image of the ideal wife; but also pressured to be what society says a woman must be. I’m searching to reconcile these contrasting values as I discover who I am.

Maura German:

My work has developed from images I imagined at two separate times. The first image was a dark tunnel that expanded into a light opening. The second image contained a huge wooden frame that had countless black threads strung vertically and tied at both ends; I knew I had tied each thread as I watched myself cutting them as I walked by. I have been drawn back to these images over and over, trying to understand what they mean. My work is informed by that search. It is about reaching again and again, drawing meaning from what I have seen.

Alex Jameson:

I can’t help but be aware of our relationship to the universe. I find myself caught up in its beauty, largeness, and mystery. So much of my time is devoted to wondering about its vastness and wishing to be a part of it outside the limits of our earth. This leads me to think a proper self-portrait of myself would be my face covered in stars. I’m also playing with the idea that we are literally made from the remnants of stars and that in our universe everything is interconnected. I’m interested in the repetition and re-imaging of the universe. I like to imagine and be playful with interpretation of what it might look like to view a nebula from a close proximity. There is so much we don’t know about the universe; so much of it, though governed by laws, is theory. This unknown gives me a subject matter to explore and create my own ideas of what it could look like.

New Art From Los Angeles

Exhibition Dates: February 10 – April 6
Opening Reception: February 10, 7-10pm
CCAspace

Participating artists:
Mclean Fahnestock
Roni Feldman
Kiel Johnson
William Kaminski
Billy Kheel
Owen Kydd

Claudia Parducci
Max Presneill
Nano Rubio
Aili Schmeltz
Chris Trueman
Grant Vetter

Please join us for an opening reception for the 2012 Utah Ties Juried Art Exhibit this Friday, February 10 from 7-10pm. Max Presneill, Head Curator for the Torrance Art Museum, has made his selections and will be attending the reception. He will be announcing the award winners for the show at 8:00pm.

CUAC Mission Statement:

The purpose of the CUAC is to educate Utahns about Contemporary Art through exhibitions of artists from three categories:
1. Sanpete artists who demonstrate a high level of professionalism in their art;
2. Utah artists who make art in a Contemporary genre who are emerging or well established;
3. and artists who are exemplary of important trends in Contemporary Art worldwide.

The CUAC maintains that good education about art starts with strong exhibitions of Contemporary Art that have relevance in content or image to our community.

Education also includes outreach to the community in the form of classes for adults and children, lectures and critical dialogue about art, and an inviting, friendly environment that welcomes visitors and encourages questions and strives to provide answers.

Congratulations to the following artists:

Trent Alvey

Daniel Barney

John Bell

Trent Call

Bruce Case

Matthew Choberka

Brian Christensen

Noah Coleman

Taren Devereux

Julie Dunker

Tom Dunn

Daniel Everett

Peter Everett

Carey Ann Francis

Mckenzie Garey

Jonathan Gibson

Holly Jarvis

Brooklyn Johnson

Steven Larson

Holly Lyons

Jason Moffat

Jenny Morgan

Jeremias Paul

Anna Peterson

Andrew Rice

Michael Richards

Mary Toscano

Laura Sharp Wilson

]]> http://www.cuartcenter.org/utah-ties-accepted-artists/feed 0 http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-utah-ties-exhibition-selected-artists-to-be-announced-at-cuactails http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-utah-ties-exhibition-selected-artists-to-be-announced-at-cuactails#comments Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:34:19 +0000 admin http://www.cuartcenter.org/?p=2122

What do you get when you add the CUAC with cocktails? You get CUACtails, an informal party sponsored by the Central Utah Art Center. This month CUACtails is at The Spot, a friendly neighborhood bar in downtown Salt Lake. There will be dancing, and art-ing, and oh yeah we will be announcing the artists selected to be in the 2012 Utah Ties Juried Exhibition. (Don’t worry if you entered the show and you can’t make it to the party, you will receive email notification.)

Please come and enjoy yourself with your fellow artists and also pick up some discounted tickets for the pARTy Bus! And FYI CUACtails is just a precursor to the opening reception which is on Feb 10 in Ephraim. So many art parties!

when: Saturday, Feb 4, 9:30pm-1am

where: The Spot, 870 South Main Street, Salt Lake City

what: dancing, drinks, Utah Ties Announcement, discounted party bus tickets

who: 21+ 

CONTACT: Morgan Edwards

Central Utah Art Center

86 North Main

Ephraim, UT 84627

435-283-5110

www.cuartcenter.org

*******Due to technical difficulties THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL THURSDAY, JANUARY 26.*******

If you are having technical difficulties, or special requests, please email Mo at art@cuartcenter.org.

2012 Utah Ties Juried Exhibit 
The Central Utah Art Center is pleased to announce it’s 8th Annual Utah Ties Juried Art Exhibition. Artists with ties to Utah, as well as all Utah residents, are welcome to submit work.

The Utah Ties Exhibition, which has become a yearly tradition at the Central Utah Art Center, began as a way to showcase the work of exceptional artists in and around the state. The Art Center has been very careful to select jurors with world-class qualifications, and the Utah Ties exhibit becomes a valuable way to connect them with local artists at a critical level.

This year’s juror is Max Presneill, Head Curator for the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles, as well as Director of ARTRA Curatorial(www.artrala.org).

The Utah Ties exhibit is always a strong show full of interesting and innovative work from artists working in Utah and artists that are tied to the state. Last year’s winners were Vanessa Gromek, Morgan Wakefield and Chris Coy.

Artsts are encouraged to apply online.  All media will be accepted.

Important Dates: 
Submission Deadline: January 26, 2012
Artist Notification February 4, 2012

Opening Reception: February 10th at 7 p.m

Delivery of accepted work: February 6, 2012

Pick up of exhibited work: April 7, 2012

Other Information 
Entry Fee: $20 for 3 images and $5 per each additional image

Prizes: 1st $500/$200/$100

Juror’s Bio

Max Presneill is a Los Angeles based artist and curator, originally from London, UK.

As an artist he has shown throughout the world including New York, London, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Sydney and Tokyo and is represented by Durden & Ray, Los Angeles, as well as the Garboushian Gallery, Beverly Hills.

Currently he is the Head Curator for the Torrance Art Museum as well as Director of ARTRA Curatorial, an independent curatorial projects management team, who organized the CO/LAB art fair, 2011. He has extensive experience internationally as a curator having organized exhibitions for museums, institutes and galleries in the US and UK, the Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, Australia, and more.

He was the Founder and former Director of Raid Projects (1998 – 2009 – an artists initiative space with global reach – www.raidprojects) and Director of the Mark Moore Gallery (2005-8). He was the co-founder of BLOC Studios in the UK in 1996 and the founder of the Ntopia Group (an artists international collective).

Besides giving regular lectures on professional practices at universities and other venues he has also sat on the panels for the American Association of Museums Annual Conference 2010 for ‘On the Road: Ephemeral Exhibits and The Visitor Experience’, the Contemporary Art Roundtable, organized by CERA, at Pasadena Museum of California Art in 2010 and the City of Los Angeles Public Art Selection Panel for the Metro system, for the same year. He has worked briefly as an art critic, still writes essays occasionally for artist’s catalogs as well as for each TAM exhibition catalog and was previously Professor of Fine Art at several universities in the UK and the US – he holds 4 degrees, 3 of which are advanced degrees – teaching on various Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts courses. He has also sat on the Selection Committee’s for NOVA Young Art Fair (Chicago), PULSE Art Fair (New York/Miami/London), the PILOT program and publication (London), and for the McColl Center’s Artist-in-Residence Program, North Carolina amongst others.  He has lived in Los Angeles since 2001.

Website: www.maxpresneill.com

Mariah Robertson plays with the projections, parading a tabletop through the gallery space.

]

A corner view of the downstairs gallery.

curated by Lindsey Winkel

Exhibition Dates: December 2-Februaury 3

CUAC Annex

Participating artists

Morgan Donovan

Anna Hansen

Greg Hebard

Etsuko Kato

Tyler Lynch

Michael Marcinek

Sarra Nordesen

Anikó Sáfrán

Guinnevere Shuster

Salt Photo Society is a group of artists supported by the University of Utah who work to connect academic and community art practices. Across Process is a collection of works by members of Salt Photo Society who have roots in analog photography. The processes they currently work with help record the possible digressions, or continuations, of meat-and-potatoes film practices during a time when the disposition of their foundational medium is uncertain.”

Visit their website here.

Exhibition Dates: December 2-February 3

Main Gallery and CCA Cabin

In keeping with the exhibition’s title, a playful revised acronym for CUAC, Brooklyn-based artist Mariah Robertson will present an experimental arrangement of video and large scale photography specifically considered to activate the CUAC’s main and CCA cabin spaces—including interactive video and film projections, and a photo installation of a 30″x100′ roll of hand processed, uncut photo paper. Using an assortment of analog photo techniques, her layered works combine images ranging from modernist and abstract to representational and figural into a single image that disrupts the format and standards for photography. Robertson has exhibited extensively at venues worldwide including PS1, Saatchi Gallery, and Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art. She was also featured in the PBS series Art21.

Exhibition Dates: December 2-February 3

Upstairs Gallery

Brooklyn-based Sculptor Courtney Puckett’s craft techniques function as a formal investigation related to the history of women challenging the rules of painting and sculpture by utilizing stereotypically feminine materials and subjects. By taking discarded domestic items and combining them through weaving, stitching, wrapping, and knotting, Puckett simultaneously reveals their disparate histories and masks the function implications of others. She has exhibited and studied worldwide, and has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Vermont Studio Center, Buffalo National River in Arkansas, and the Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, NY.

After the necessary permit was obtained and the Department of Buildings inspected the slide, the DCA approved the installation—certainly a tremendous relief for the museum, as well as those who were prepared for a “Save the Slide” crusade—and the tube slide of the Carsten Höller: Experience exhibition is back in play until the show closes in January of next year.

For more information about Höller’s show, visit www.newmuseum.org.

http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/features/2011/nov/01/new-museum/

http://gothamist.com/2011/11/03/new_museums_slide_is_safe_says_city.php

The addition of Dr Magleby is only one of the many changes BYU MOA has under went in the past year. Other changes occurred in the education, PR and design departments. Dr Magleby is a strong proponent of his staff remarking they “create concrete exhibitions from the most ephemeral ideas.” It will be interesting to see the imprint Dr Magleby will have on Utah’s art community. The CUAC extends our support to Dr. Magleby as he begins his position as the Director of BYU MOA.

curated by Cara Despain

Exhibition Dates: October 14 – November 15

The Central Utah Art Center presents graphic— two pocket exhibitions curated by former GARFO Art Center curator Cara Despain.  The exhibitions are linked by a common visual language executed via different formal modes and materials, and situate the graphic within contemporary art; setting it apart from the illustrative and commercial and pushing it past the linear narrative.

exhibit a: Fionn McCabe and Sri Whipple—Los Angeles-based artist Fionn McCabe and Salt Lake City artist Sri Whipple share several common influences and formal sensibilities concerning the language of graphic novels,  but also depart from it in content and execution.  The exhibition will show collaborative mixed media works, in addition to pieces created individually, that intersect, combine, dissect and even subvert this language, and also mark the differences between the two artists.

exhibit b: Erin Riley—Culling images from sources such as Google and Facebook Philidelphia-based artist Erin Riley makes permanent a facet of contemporary culture, and points to a loose narrative as told by the Internet.  The tapestries use an old medium to address very contemporary issues, and subdue the explicit by simplifying the images into more graphic forms.

Exhibition Dates: October 14 – November 25

“Are We Having Fun Yet?” takes current political and economic events as a point of entry to explore ideas of security, passivity and general anxiety for the future. Although these concepts are serious, the result is not without humor.  Comprised of new works on paper, the works in this exhibition are a product of loosely associated images as mediations rather than projecting any one ideology or thesis.

Taiwanese-born American Fay Ku graduated from Pratt Institute with an MFA and a Master’s of Science in Art History. The faux-naïve nature of her illustrative style is exemplified by her use of watercolour, ink, and graphite on paper. Her choice of subject matter has evolved over the years, yet she retains the elegant juxtaposition of seriousness and puerility of her earlier art. Conscious of the fact that her unconscious is largely at work when she creates, her recent illustrations demonstrate a somewhat playfully cynical view of society. Her Darger-esque drawings present relevant socioeconomic commentary via images of modern-day youth of the glitterati living a neo-Rococo lifestyle, provoking the viewer to contemplate economic stability of the future and the results of passing the torch to a generation that seems to be more concerned with role-playing as rather than becoming adults.

[Show as slideshow]

Participating artists:
Josh Azzarella
Ben Thorp Brown
Ben Dean
Laura Heyman
Ann Hirsch
Sara Jordenö

|riˈkər|from Latin recurrere: to run back
This group of artwork is part of ongoing research into the concept and application of recursion, which is generally associated with computer science, linguistics, and mathematics; but has also been applied to the visual arts. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines recursion as “the determination of a succession of elements (as numbers or functions [or lines]) by operation on one or more preceding elements according to a rule or formula involving a finite number of steps.” The aspect of my paintings that is recursive is the structure. Each design is produced by a particular predefined motion along a path. So far I have produced three different types of recursive structures. One which is recorded along a singular path as in Circuitous Melody; two, moved along a distinct path during each cycle as in Flammeum Gladium; third, a path is started, terminated, and restarted in a new position multiple times to produce a cluster of enclosed shapes as in Ventus Turbinis.

Roland Thompson was born in 1970 in Utah, where he continues to live and work. He received a B.F.A. from Brigham Young University in 1998 and an M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2001. Thompson has been featured in over 60 exhibits, the most notable including: Hot & Sticky, The Painting Center, New York (2001); Random Order, White Columns, New York (2003); Reductive, Mahan Gallery, Columbus, Ohio (2006); and 24/7, Sego Art Center, Provo, Utah (2009). Thompson is recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, including a 2008 Utah Arts Council Grant, and teaches at Brigham Young University and Art Institute of Pittsburg-Online Division.

This exhibition is one of many at the CUAC that features highly acclaimed artists from around the United States and Utah. A review of our programming has recently been included in the highly influential international Flash Art magazine published in Milan, Italy. Artists who have shown at the CUAC over the last four years have been included in the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennial, collected by Charles Saatchi; they have been exhibited in the Getty Museum, Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Saatchi Gallery, major museums in Switzerland, Germany, Iceland, Korea, and Spain; They have shown in Deitch Projects, Mary Boone Gallery, Freight and Volume Gallery, the Drawing Center, and many other important New York, Los Angeles, and international venues.

Participating artists:
Andrea Cerveny
Bethany Davis
Rachel Call

These artists are establishing connections with people and places where there is an inherent disconnection in the relationship between artist and subject, and in the process discovering more about who and where they are as individuals.
Each are motivated by curiosity; by a need for deeper understanding of our various subjects. Andrea Cerveny’s House prints explore the assumptions and conclusions, correct or otherwise, we make when we see things only from the outside. Bethany Davis’ reproductions of old family photos allow her to connect with her 9 older siblings and parents in a way otherwise not possible, as she wasn’t yet born during their growing-up years. Rachel’s contact prints represent the details and nuances of individual people which are lost through the passing of generations.

Participating artists:
Josh Azzarella
Ben Thorp Brown
Ben Dean
Laura Heyman
Ann Hirsch
Sara Jordenö

The artists in Documentary Fiction explore the tension between the perceived objectivity of the photographic image and their capacity to transform and manipulate, creating partial, even fictional, narratives from what appear to be recordings of reality. Drawing on the conventions of the documentary genre–photographs and videos that seem to testify to an actual event–these artists pose a direct challenge to our expectations of fidelity. Exploiting the gap between fact and fiction inherent in the creation of representational images, the works in the exhibition resist the assumption that an image is an accurate depiction of the world as it exists. 

Josh Azzarella alters appropriated images found on the internet, digitally removing the central figures from the scene depicted. Often using iconic photographs of historical events, the resulting photographs are stripped of their function as historical documents, leaving behind only background details and compositional devices. 

In his project Unseen (2011), Ben Thorp Brown addresses the gap between text and image, and the inherent subjectivity of a second-hand account. Attempting to reconstruct an archive of classified images taken by soldiers in Afghanistan charged with murdering civilians, Brown interviewed journalists who had seen the photographs, presenting their text descriptions in lieu of the censored images themselves. 

Using computer rendering techniques, Ben Dean creates digital reconstructions of various landscapes, complicating the notion of what it means to document a particular place. For his projection Landmark (2003), he created a rendering based on the rock formation seen in the first propaganda video of Osama bin Laden, adding the sound of footsteps and the perspective of walking around the object to give the impression of traversing the landscape. Combined with ambient noise recorded in the artist’s studio, the dissonant elements that constitute Landmark form an ambiguous portrait of a place that is neither wholly real nor wholly fictional.

Laura Heyman: Drawing on the familiar trope of the artist’s lover as muse, Laura Heyman’s series The Photographer’s Wife presents a recurring female figure in intimate, domestic settings. However, the woman depicted is not the photographer’s wife, as the title might suggest, but the artist herself, challenging our expectations of the relationship between artist and model. Moreover, the photographs take on the status of a kind of fictive document of a relationship that doesn’t exist. 

Conceiving of her work as a form of sociological investigation into subcultures of fame, Ann Hirsch injects herself into various media landscapes, adopting fictionalized personas that interact with the real world. For her project Scandalishious, Hirsch spent a year documenting her life as “Caroline”, a college student who went by the moniker Scandalishious, through videos she placed on YouTube. Interacting with various fans and detractors who were unaware that the videos were part of a larger performance and study, Hirsch uses the camera as a vehicle to create a fictional life, complete with inter-personal relationships via the Internet.

Sara Jordeno’s film The Set House (Hedvig), part of a seven-part series exploring various aspects surrounding Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona, takes the house in which the film was set as its subject, examining a place that exists simultaneously within the fictional space of Bergman’s narrative and the real life of Hedwig, the woman who presently occupies it, documenting both the temptation to recreate a favorite film and the ways in which Hedwig resists attempts at her fictionalization.

This exhibition is one of many at the CUAC that features highly acclaimed artists from around the United States and Utah. A review of our programming has recently been included in the highly influential international Flash Art magazine published in Milan, Italy. Artists who have shown at the CUAC over the last four years have been included in the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennial, collected by Charles Saatchi; they have been exhibited in the Getty Museum, Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Saatchi Gallery, major museums in Switzerland, Germany, Iceland, Korea, and Spain; They have shown in Deitch Projects, Mary Boone Gallery, Freight and Volume Gallery, the Drawing Center, and many other important New York, Los Angeles, and international venues.

CUAC Mission Statement:

The purpose of the CUAC is to educate Utahns about Contemporary Art through exhibitions of artists from three categories:

1. Sanpete artists who demonstrate a high level of professionalism in their art;
2. Utah artists who make art in a Contemporary genre who are emerging or well established;
3. and artists who are exemplary of important trends in Contemporary Art worldwide.

The CUAC maintains that good education about art starts with strong exhibitions of Contemporary Art that have relevance in content or image to our community. Education also includes outreach to the community in the form of classes for adults and children, lectures and critical dialogue about art, and an inviting, friendly environment that welcomes visitors and encourages questions and strives to provide answers.

]]> http://www.cuartcenter.org/documentary-fiction-curated-by-lizzie-gorfaine-and-rachel-wetzler/feed 0 http://www.cuartcenter.org/localized-working-in-proximity-installation-views http://www.cuartcenter.org/localized-working-in-proximity-installation-views#comments Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:52:07 +0000 admin http://www.cuartcenter.org/?p=1840 June 10 – Aug 5

Artists:

Scott Allred

Amy Jorgensen

Adam Larsen

Brad Taggart

[Show as slideshow]

















]]> http://www.cuartcenter.org/localized-working-in-proximity-installation-views/feed 0 http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-localized-working-in-proximity-june-10-7-10pm http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-localized-working-in-proximity-june-10-7-10pm#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:52:35 +0000 admin http://www.cuartcenter.org/?p=1797

CUAC Main Gallery
Central Utah Art Center
86 South Main
Ephraim, UT 84627
(435) 283-5110
www.cuartcenter.org

Exhibition Dates: June 10 – August 5, 2011
Opening Reception: June 10, 2011 7-10pm

CUAC is pleased to announce an exhibition of work from Scott Allred, Amy Jorgensen, Adam Larsen, and Brad Taggart. This exhibit explores the relationship between colleagues and the what role location and proximity plays in the creation of art.
Each artist is a full-time professor at Snow College. Working individually they set out to create work that is both personal and also communicates a sense of place through media and concept.

Scott Allred

Scott Allred is interested in formal aesthetic relationships. In the drawing process shape is what makes the subject recognizable and value execution makes the subject believable. His work consists primarily of figure studies, portraits, and large biblical narratives in the tradition of historic masterpieces. It is his desire to revisit this imagery in his drawings and paintings.

Amy Jorgensen

Amy Jorgensen’s work began as an inquiry into the practices and aesthetics of historical criminal photography and associated assumptions of the photograph as a document of the moment, or a representation of truth – what Walter Benjamin describes as evidence of an occurrence. Traditional notions of the body in art, the figure as object on view, are set aside to consider the body as an active participant in artistic process. She incorporates performance and photography with a willingness to use her own body as both test subject and subject matter in an investigation of personal and cultural assumptions linked to our artistic and scientific expectations of photographic practice. Jorgensen explores the body as both repository and author of information. The resulting photographs are the striking visual residue of her experience: traces of body fluid, clothing, skin prints, and the fine edges of body hair are evidence of her occurrence. Jorgensen states, “My body is an archive, my skin the surface through which I experience the world.”

Adam Larsen

Adam Larsen is a passionate artist and teacher of the visual language. His philosophy of art and teaching embraces the idea that art occurs when craft and concept homogenize. He is dedicated to promoting the practice of fundamental visual and dextral skills in a variety of artistic disciplines. His work cannot be categorized completely by one artistic medium but instead exists in varied forms of drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and artists’ books. This mixed-media affiliation allows him freedom as an artist to produce work in any combination of material and process, informing and enhancing his particular concept. His current work can be characterized as a visual reflection of his life as he attempts to translate commonplace occurrences into intimate visual dialogs utilizing the visual and tactile container of the artists’ book. The work includes the use of toys and elements of childhood play, metaphorically creating a reciprocal relationship between early memories and adulthood.

Brad Taggart

He is a maker of objects. As a sculptor Brad Taggart modifies materials and space to suit the body of work. He is a traditional sculptor in the sense that he places emphasis on the quality of the object even when the nature of the object is driven by conceptual concerns. He believes that a high-minded idea, in the absence of a finely crafted object, is philosophy mixed with theatre. He considers himself a contemporary sculptor and subscribes to the notion that he can work in any tradition, material, technology, or style that suits him. He is a figure sculptor, but also an installation artist. He embraces realism, yet is equally at home with abstraction. He uses age-old processes to create his work, but is willing to accept new technologies that allow him to be more efficient. He relishes the freedom to say what he needs to say when he needs to say it using whatever means necessary to get his message across. In the end Taggart’s message will always take a material form because he believes that as a sculptor he is a maker of objects.

]]> http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-localized-working-in-proximity-june-10-7-10pm/feed 0 http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-sanpete-is-for-lovers-june-10-7-10pm http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-sanpete-is-for-lovers-june-10-7-10pm#comments Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:40:55 +0000 admin http://www.cuartcenter.org/?p=1786

Master Mahan Fyling Before Jehovah’s Curse (After Cormon) / Jason Metcalf / 2010

 

curated by Jason Metcalf

 

Central Utah Art Center

86 South Main

Ephraim, UT 84627

(435) 283-5110

www.cuartcenter.org

 

Exhibition Dates: June 10 – August 5, 2011

Opening Reception: June 10, 2011 7-10pm

 

CUAC is pleased to announce the two part exhibition, Sanpete is for Lovers, where Jason Metcalf acts as curator-artist-folklorist in an investigation into superstitions specific to the locale of the Sanpete Valley. In half of the exhibition, Metcalf has conducted research into and gathered evidence of a Sanpete Valley sighting of the forever-traveling figure of Master Mahan – the wandering Biblical Cain who has been cursed to roam the earth until the end of days.  The other half of the exhibition examines the formal and theoretical affinities that are had with quilt barn paintings and Modernist geometric abstraction. Metcalf has placed quilt barn paintings within the galleries of CUAC, while simultaneously displaying examples of the latter on the original grain storage building which is situated on the historic pioneer complex of the art center, as well as throughout the Sanpete Valley.  Quilt barn paintings are believed to have genesis with Amish hex paintings, which some folklorists think were placed on barns to ward off or hex evil from the lives and property of a given group.

Jason Metcalf is an artist and curator based in Sundance, Utah. He has exhibited his work nationally and locally throughout Utah in venues including the Scope International Art Fair in NY and Miami, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Mesa Arts Center, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibits, Kayo Gallery, and the Rio Gallery among others. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and completed a BFA at Brigham Young University.  Metcalf co-founded and directed the former Sego Art Center, which was located in Provo, Utah. Additional work can be found at jasonmetcalf.com.

 



Design for All Hallows Quilt Block Painting Number 1 / Jason Metcalf / 2011

This exhibition is one of many at the CUAC that features highly acclaimed artists from around the United States and Utah. A review of our programming has recently been included in the highly influential international Flash Art magazine published in Milan, Italy. Artists who have shown at the CUAC over the last four years have been included in the Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennial, collected by Charles Saatchi; they have been exhibited in the Getty Museum, Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Saatchi Gallery, major museums in Switzerland, Germany, Iceland, Korea, and Spain; They have shown in Deitch Projects, Mary Boone Gallery, Freight and Volume Gallery, the Drawing Center, and many other important New York, Los Angeles, and international venues.

 

CUAC Mission Statement:

The purpose of the CUAC is to educate Utahns about Contemporary Art through exhibitions of artists from three categories:

1. Sanpete artists who demonstrate a high level of professionalism in their art;
2. Utah artists who make art in a Contemporary genre who are emerging or well established;
3. and artists who are exemplary of important trends in Contemporary Art worldwide.

The CUAC maintains that good education about art starts with strong exhibitions of Contemporary Art that have relevance in content or image to our community. Education also includes outreach to the community in the form of classes for adults and children, lectures and critical dialogue about art, and an inviting, friendly environment that welcomes visitors and encourages questions and strives to provide answers.

 

]]> http://www.cuartcenter.org/for-immediate-release-sanpete-is-for-lovers-june-10-7-10pm/feed 0 http://www.cuartcenter.org/blake-carrington-installation-views http://www.cuartcenter.org/blake-carrington-installation-views#comments Thu, 19 May 2011 19:53:35 +0000 admin http://www.cuartcenter.org/?p=1763
[Show as slideshow]




















12►

Photography courtesy of Jason Metcalf

]]> http://www.cuartcenter.org/blake-carrington-installation-views/feed 0 http://www.cuartcenter.org/get-your-free-vegan-macaroons-on-the-party-bus http://www.cuartcenter.org/get-your-free-vegan-macaroons-on-the-party-bus#comments Tue, 10 May 2011 15:36:28 +0000 admin http://www.cuartcenter.org/?p=1716  



Raw Melissa will be providing free vegan macaroons for pARTy Bus riders.  Raw Melissa is committed to LIFE and LOVE – Living and Loving.



Hi! I own a company called Raw Melissa that sells extraordinary healthy gourmet desserts and offers nutrition coaching and education. Our products at Raw Melissa are made from only fresh fruits and vegetables, raw nuts and seeds, cold pressed healthy oils and natural sweeteners. We recycle all we can, we use very small amounts of electricity and almost all our packaging is made from materials that are so biodegradable, they can be composted. We strive to buy locally as often as possible and lastly and most importantly, we don’t sell anything that doesn’t taste absolutely delicious. I’m also lucky enough to have been a doula (birth assistant) and childbirth educator for over a decade, having helped several hundred couples during pregnancy and childbirth and am also one of two DONA Approved Doula Trainers in Utah.

More About Raw Melissa

website: rawmelissa.com

food twitter: twitter.com/rawmelissa
food blog: rawmelissa.blogspot.com
birth twitter: twitter.com/doulamelissa
birth blog: doulamelissa.blogspot.com

About the Original pARTy Bus

This 50 passenger bus will not only be providing transportation, but a full art experience. The bus picks up at 5:50pm every second Friday of the month at GARFO, located 1800 South 1500 East, with another pick up along the way in Provo at 1st West and 1st North. On the bus, patrons will enjoy free drinks as well as video art by local, national or international artists for the ride to the show.  This way, the bus itself, serves as a sort of mobile art exhibition. Upon arrival, they will enjoy the art show opening (free to the public) as well as a free concert. CUAC pARTy bus is sponsored in-part by the Pizza Gallery across the street from CUAC in Ephraim.  The Pizza Gallery often hosts live music events and art exhibitions in collaboration with CUAC.

Get Your pARTy Bus Tickets

[Show as slideshow]


]]> http://www.cuartcenter.org/get-your-free-vegan-macaroons-on-the-party-bus/feed 0