Spring Dawn & The Fallacy of Time
Measuring space by its contents - A few updates & writing to echo the feeling
I've been measuring back, and somehow unsurprisingly I lost several weeks to the haze, milky yellow overlaying lavender love - over laying on your couch with no love. sunshine a bouquet of sunflowers and daffodils . I told you there was nothing left here but a gentle fragile strumming - nothing but a hollow aching well. and I meant that, for time only gives back what is prayed for. I'll subscribe every cell in my body to a dream drenched in dawn-lit dew. It's time again I seek salvation, so heaven forgive me.
Upcoming and Current Exhibitions:
TREVOR DAHL x VITA at FICE GALLERY / 3.15.24 / 6-9PM
/ DJ SHAWZ
Please join us in celebrating the opening reception of my duo exhibition with friend and fellow SLC painter, Trevor Dahl, at FICE Gallery in downtown Salt Lake on March 15, in parallel with the city’s monthly gallery stroll. The show will run publicly during business hours for the remainder of the month following the reception.
We will both be showing a body of newly finished work, centering around the dream-like “worlds” we have been crafting within our individual practices —Trevor with his delightful characters and nods toward mythology, and my landscapes and portals nodding towards metaphysics and esoterics.
I will have collectibles available at a range of access points, including first edition prints of Wellspring VII (seen below), as well as respective editions of many of my well-loved prints from 2022-2023, and small originals in addition to large-scale work.
@TrevorDahhhl
goodhappystuff.com
IG - @ FICEGALLERY / 160 E. 200 S., SLC, UT / Free / All Ages
BLANKSPACE GALLERY x VITA x CARSÓN YOUNG BESSER
TEMPORARY VISIONS will be up for viewing at Blankspace Gallery in Ogden for the remainder of March! Book an appointment to get tattooed by one of the incredible artists at Blankspace and go see the work we have displayed there.
This show is a curation of paintings and drawings which predate the current styles both Carsón and I have cultivated in the present. The reception night on 2/9 was lovely, and filled with lots of sweet laughter.
Above photo captured by Makenna Chapa (IG @Makonfilm_).
IG - @BLANKSPACEGALLERY / 298 24th St #435D, Ogden, UT
MILLCREEK COMMON / JAN 13 - MAR 15, 2024
A few months ago I was invited to display a gallery booth at the Millcreek Common, and on Jan 25, I had the privilege to speak on the morning news about my art and the opportunity. This has been a wonderful chance to reach a new audience, deepen my roots in the fertile soil of the Salt Lake Valley, and expand my connections with arts advocates in my community. Thanks so much to the whole team at the City Hall for involving me, it means the world!
My booth will be up in its current form until March 15, so make sure to check it out before the space shifts pace for the second quarter of the year.
IG - @MillcreekCommon / 1354 E Chambers Ave, Millcreek, UT
Studio Updates:
FINALLY FINISHED! Among many of the projects I’ve been working on these past two months, at top priority was Wellspring VII (above). This piece received its initial layers of paint in early June of 2023, and through the summer and autumn progressed consistently. In the end, apprx. 500 hours of painting totaled out the process.
I’m wildly proud of what I did here - my technique and vision expanded in exponential ways through the process and I am so excited to show it off at FICE on 3/15.
Keep your eyes peeled for an email with print details — Coming soon!
DEAD HORSE POINT I
This commission was quite a special one to create. Molly came to me with a quote which embodied the philosophy of living in humble yet emboldened grace with the power we each possess. The vastness of this particular vantage point in Southern Utah symbolized to her a chance to empower ourselves in our small but radiant existence - and also hit a nostalgic note in the timeline of her current partnership. The message she asked me to convey through the work was one of “shine bright, be talented, why not?” and I think that’s exciting and beautiful.
! REFRESH YOUR SPACE !
I WOULD LOVE TO MAKE MORE CUSTOM WORK OF SPECIAL PLACES
Please email me at inquire@vitarising.com or fill out THIS FORM to discuss
- We will chat about what’s meaningful to you, how you want to feel when you look at the art, where it will live in your home/space, and which colors resonate most.
An exploration into architecture from January! I was inspired quite significantly by Byzantine architecture, and the vision of Ancient Syracuse as depicted in the 2003 Animated Dreamworks film: Sinbad Sailor of the Seven Seas.
This piece is sold, and I am excited to continue delving further into painting buildings and incorporating them into my paintings.
FINAL NOTES ON THE SEASON:
January felt like two thousand days of running hard and fast, full sprint, on firm asphalt. Dodging patches of ice with quick glances ahead - vision consistently directed at my feet. Left in front of right, right in front of left. heel toe heel toe a cloud of smoke meets the haze hanging thick among the city, blends, smog coughed heavy out of half capacity lungs into shirt sleeves and boughs of poplar trees - bare shivering piercing the sky like bayonets or hands, grasping for something to eat. They say, Palestine is on the brink of famine. Something comes to mind about the holy ghost passes with a gust of sawtooth wind I realize that five years have passed since I climbed the I-15 to Utah, drank in this gray sky for the first time with my eyes, felt my chest collapse and expand with a bit more hesitation ... I wonder what three or five or ten more years looks like on me, in me, around me. I close my eyes and see magnificent things. I open them, I see magnificent things. January was long, just how I like him. - I was looking for more time and I found it. February slid into place like the dozens of fingers that used to perfectly fit between mine now fitting without error between the hands of others, building homes, cooking dinner, and perusing thrift shop aisles a sharp stab comes flying through the front of me I see the swiftness in which time passes the swiftness in which it all fades ... and Nevertheless, I’ve turned towards the unyieldingness of time like a wolf to the moon — howling out , trembling at an altar I've made of the stars. In the corridor the cement is dirty, and shadows seem to move at the stuttered beat of a distant hi-hat I pass two beautiful women, and one of them is saying something about surrender The hands on clocks around the world keep on ticking. Somewhere down the street, a discarded winter glove lays like a mangled hand on a dim lonesome sidewalk. A ring of smoke twists itself into a knotted window in the night sky above an abandoned apartment just north of me, and I stand, in a city asleep, smelling of cigarettes and bodies. 6,000 miles away, bombshells fracture the plaster on someone’s grandmother’s walls.
THANK YOU FOR READING AT THE TEMPLE OF THE RISING SUN.
MAY MIRACLES RAIN UPON YOU AND HEALTH ALWAYS HOLD YOUR HAND
I LOVE YOU. AMEN.
VITA <3