Current art exhibitions at UMFA, Granary Arts, Gallery MAR 

• Courtesy Boise Art Museum
• Many Wests

Utah Museum of Fine Arts: Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea
The American West of popular mythology, centered entirely around white settlers, was never the whole story, as demonstrated by this touring exhibition organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and four regional museums, including the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Many Wests examines that broad idea of the American West through lenses that aren't as regularly considered, specifically those of Black, Native American, Latinx and Asian, in order to provide a more comprehensive, inclusive view of the subject.

"The artists featured in this exhibition catalyze new understandings of a region and history that is so often submerged in stereotype and distortion," writes E. Carmen Ramos, former acting chief curator and curator of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. "Their works address the past and present, revealing that 'the West' has always been a place of multiple stories, experiences and cultures. Organizing this exhibition with museum partners who are based in the American West itself allows us to feature many artists with deep ties to this region. This fact makes this exhibition especially meaningful." 

Many Wests runs at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (410 Campus Center Dr.) through June 11, 2023. Admission is $14.95 - $17.95, with museum operating hours 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday – Sunday, 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. Wednesday. Visit umfa.utah.edu. 

• Courtesy Photo
• Jiyoun Lee Lodge

Jiyoun Lee-Lodge: Waterman – Coloring the Stranger @ Granary Arts
Alienness, or a sense of not belonging, can be a familiar feeling for people in a wide variety of settings and circumstances. For artist Jiyoun Lee-Lodge, that feeling emerged upon relocating from New York to Utah, and was only magnified by the isolating experience of the COVID pandemic. In developing her Waterman series—currently on display at Granary Arts—Lee-Lodge was inspired by the idea she expressed as, "If I mimic what an ideal life looks like in a new place, will I blend in well?"

Waterman takes its name from a surrogate character created by the artist, a fluid identity that excels at reflecting back what is seen by the viewer, and always shifts and adapts to fit into the space where it is contained. She took additional inspiration from the 1998 film Pleasantville, in which characters are transported back to the idealized world of a 1950s black-and-white sitcom, and gradually gain color when they feel able to express their own feelings rather than conform to fit in. According to a press release from the gallery, "Lee-Lodge draws a parallel between her process of 'coloring' the Waterman to an acceptance and transcendence of her hope for active and open communication among people, just like the film."

Jiyoun Lee-Lodge's Waterman – Coloring the Stranger runs at the Upper Gallery of Granary Arts (86 N. Main St., Ephraim) through May 5, 2023. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Wednesday – Saturday; visit granaryarts.org for additional information.

• Courtesy Photo
• Matt Flint

Matt Flint: Shifting Fragments @ Gallery MAR
The landscape of the Mountain West lends itself to the work of artists inspired by the natural world, and the creatures that inhabit it. Wyoming-based visual artist Matt Flint brings his unique perspective on that world to his new solo exhibition Shifting Fragments, featuring oil and mixed media work imbued with a compassion for the horses, bears, birds and other animals that are his most common subjects.

The artist describes his process as one similar to poetry, where the subjects come "in and out of focus" rather than an attempt at a literal representation. According to a gallery release for the exhibition, "He begins without an end-result in mind and allows his studio materials to inspire the finished painting. The results are pieces that show a stripping away and suggest something of an underneath, beyond our tangible, everyday reality, behind the veil, the essence of a moment in time. His wolves, horses, and landscapes are often reminiscent of a dream state—a loose and subdued world of imagination, the feeling of solitude, and of distant memories."

Shifting Fragments opens at Gallery MAR in Park City (436 Main St.) on Friday, Feb. 24 with an artist reception at 6 p.m. Visit gallerymar.com for additional images and event information.