Kim Holleman: All Possible Futures

It’s the artist’s task to envision possibilities, for art itself, if nothing else. Some artists also use their work to map out the contingencies of life—possible futures, if we are to have one. New York-based mixed-media artist Kim Holleman creates scale-model dioramas of the natural world from the refuse of daily life: Packing material, plastic toys or insulation all shape her photographs of this seemingly pastoral environment.

Artworks like these (“Utopian Grove” is pictured) may prompt one to try to determine what kind of “statement” the artist is making. Is the world of the artificial overtaking nature, overgrowing it like a proverbial weed? The idyllic visions of these vistas are a view into our own aesthetic bias that color both our artistic sensibilities as well as our preferences about the natural world and its order. They are compelling enough that her latest show in the Big Apple was featured as a “must-see” by public radio station WNYC.

Or can you take these diminutive depictions of a world closely similar to our own as mere accounting—taking what is at hand, in terms of material—to shape a model of our world the way an architect might? As such, they are an odd celebration of the creative impulse and the human desire to shape the environment. One thing that’s intriguing about the title: These works don’t include a depiction of an all-too-possible future in which we, and the world, are obliterated.

%u2028(Brian Staker) Kim Holleman: All Possible Futures @ House Gallery, 29 E. 400 South, 801-910-1736, through Aug. 27, free. Gallery stroll reception Aug. 19, 6-9 p.m. HouseGallerySLC.com