Kayo Gallery has been teaming up artists in tandem exhibits quite successfully, and it’s the perfect space for it: the size of a small CD store, with long walls opposing each other so both artists’ works can reflect one another.
The paintings of Lindsay Frei and Cassandra Barney work especially well together, both enclosing their own discrete dramas. Frei, a graduate of the University of Utah’s painting program, creates large portraits that are moments of tension, human still-lifes, characters who could be about to tell a lie or reveal some momentous truth.
Barney’s Tin Retablo series began as an invitation for stories, which she illustrated with figures based on the retablo tradition in acts of prayer or supplication. To the veneer of paint on tin is added the effect of cracks in the paint, supplying the paintings with the patina of vintage, a kind of history. The common thread is narrative energy.
Lindsay Frei & Cassandra Barney @ Kayo Gallery, 177 E. 300 South, 801-532-0080, through July 14.