The most adventurous art often takes place after stepping across frontiers or demarcations, or even just looking past them to see what might be possible on the other side. Self-taught local artist Justin Carruth’s oil paintings (detail of “Premonition” is pictured) study film stills, frame by frame, and while they don’t attempt to capture the clarity of the original, they add the subtle nuances of brushstroke and pigment. The resonance between the frames is remarkable, and his striking attention to detail is a convincing argument for the persistence of the image.
Carruth’s work measures what escapes in the rush of the temporal, while Beth Krensky’s mixed-media installations create their own space within the space of the gallery and are moments of sanctuary in physical reality. “Many of the pieces,” she explains, “hearken back to my roots as an artist when my work was about using ‘performative’ gestures to cross boundaries into other spaces.”
There is a ritual and spiritual quality to her works, a gesture that would seem to point toward an experience of timelessness, almost beyond language. Krensky, a professor of art education at the University of Utah, even envisions her works as ‘post-apocalyptic,’ perhaps a kind of refuge after all the facade of experience is stripped away. This exhibit is about what is lost in translation, and what is gained.
Justin Carruth & Beth Krensky @ The Art Barn, 54 Finch Lane, 801-596-5000, through June 17, free. SLCGov.com/Arts