I am excited to announce my participation in Desire Lines, Opening Today...
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art!
RSVP with me personally to attend the VIP/Member Reception from 5-7PM
DESIRE LINES
MAIN GALLERY: JAN 26 – MAY 26 | 2018
OPENING RECEPTION: JAN 26 | 7 – 9 PM
“Desire Line – a path created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall or traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. Desire lines emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, have gaps or are non-existent.” (Wikipedia)
The landscape as a genre has held captive the imagination of the American public for the better part of the last two centuries. With unbound adoration, we have embraced the landscape, from the grandeur of the paintings of the Hudson School to the manifest destiny myth of a rugged and unspoiled west. Americans have been drawn to artists’ interpretation of place, real and fictional. Despite the popularity of the landscape, too often the public conceptualizes these works in a very traditional way, whether that is plein air oil, watercolor painting or photographs that are devoid of any hint of human disturbance.
Desire Lines highlights the various paths, ranging from archiving to reproduction to collaborations with nature to works that critique the history of landscape focused art, taken by the artists included in the exhibition to explore our complicated relationship to the landscape that shapes and supports us and our repeated desire to represent it.
LIST OF FEATURED ARTISTS:
Ameila Carley
Barry Stone
Brian Patterson
Carly Glovinski
Ian Fisher
Jane Christensen
Janell James
Kelly Larsen
Kirsten Kay Thoen
Maddison Colvin
Michael Handley
Molly Kaderka
Penelope Umbrico
Sara Frantz and Trevor Amery
Visit the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art for more information and directions.
All images and text © 2018 Janell James Studios and Janell James Artist.