Once again, in its unlikely location at the Visual Art Instutute inside the old Garfield Elementary School building in Sugar House, The Garfo Art Center surprises with one of the most progressive exhibits in the valley. There are a lot of different ways to reframe a show featuring figurative works, but Containment phrases the figure in contemporary art in terms of “both as a container for human emotion and the mind, and as something contained by the outside world and all its cultural and historic implications.”

Lofty goals—but then, Garfo has once again garnered a roster of fascinating local, national and international artists to provide an eclectic assemblage of takes on the theme. Figurative work is used as a springboard, approached through traditional media like painting and portraiture, to alternate perspectives and visions of the physical presence in the human realm.

Shantel Kristin Bennett, Rebecca Campbell, Jenny Morgan (“General’s Daughter” is pictured), and Sri Whipple will be familiar to frequenters of the local gallery stroll scene. Campbell’s feminist images, Morgan’s paintings that play with aspects of a face looking back at the viewer, and Whipple’s sensual shapes are all very painterly. Bennett’s video work explores self revelation.

Pooneh Maghazehe‘s sculpture and performance art was featured in the Chelsea Museum‘s Iran Inside Out show. South Korean artist Jayoung Yoon‘s installation works look at the spaces that enclose the figure. Rob Lorie and Jaron Anderson round out the performative aspect of the figure. As much as the exhibit repositions the body as container, Garfo always gives us a new look at what a gallery can contain.

Containment @ Garfo Art Center, 1838 S. 1500 East, 801-474-3796, July 9-Sept. 10