Really? A gay man graduated from BYU. Really!

I hadn't been to the Utah Museum of Fine Art (UMFA) for a long time.  But now is a good time to visit because there's a lot of new, good stuff to see.  It's been a while since I've seen this much intriguing art at UMFA.  So my next few posts will be about exhibits currently on view.

I'll start with the Trevor Southey retrospective titled Reconciliation. This is a big show with a significant amount of work crammed into the back galleries of the first floor.  But that crowdedness works well for this show. Southey paints with a brilliant technical ability.  But that's not what makes his art great.  There's something more.  His work exudes quiet emotion set against an intellectual intensity.

Southey was born and raised in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and studied in England.  He came to the US in 1965 and received two art degrees from Brigham Young University where he later was a faculty member.  He married and raised a family in Alpine. In 1982, he came out and as a gay man redefined his life.  

Yes, my headline for this post may be a bit sensational considering the content.  But I think knowing this background helps inform Southey's art, much of which is religious and features beautifully painted male figures that sometimes have a homoerotic sensibility.  

Here are just a few of the works I found interesting.

I loved Irrigation Turn at Dusk (1977, oil on canvas) for it's American Gothic attitude.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this is an homage to Grant Wood, another artist who lived much of his life as a closeted gay man. 

Some of the most beautiful works in the show are the bronzes which seem to make bodies magically float in air.  These works reminded me of Rodin bronzes with a modern twist.  This is Fatherhood (1994, bronze).

And this is Softening (1980, bronze).

What Trevor Southey does best is represent the male nude.  His canvases frequently feature multiple men painted with surprising attention to anatomy.  But they never feel like academic illustrations.  Frequently the individuals appear suspended in air set amid interesting planes and shapes.  The paintings reminded me of the works of Michelangelo. One of the more dramatic paintings in the show is this large canvas titled, Vyacheslav (1999, oild on canvas).

Reconciliation is on view through February 13.

Book one: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

I start the 2011 reading year with a book that isn't really my usual fare.  So perhaps a bit of explanation is in order.  Last year I read Michael Cunningham's lovely, art-world novel By Nightfall.  I liked the novel enough to consider other books by Cunningham.  I decided to read his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Hours, a story that reflects on Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway.  I thought it might be smart to read Woolf's book before I moved onto The Hours, which will be book two in 2011.

I've never read anything by Virginia Woolf until now, largely shying away from her writings due to all the literary rumors I'd heard about her stream-of-consciousness style and highly-experimental constructs.  So I was pleasantly surprised at how readable Woolf is.  Don't get me wrong, this was a tough book but not to the level I expected.  

The story follows Mrs. Dalloway (Clarissa) as she plans and hosts a party.  At the beginning of the book Clarissa is a vision of happy kindness, an interesting character that's easy to love.  And in classic Woolf style, she even has a sexually ambiguous relationship in her youth, falling for a female friend.  She's very different from Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran newly returned from World War I; he's depressed, annoying, and not an character I'd want to know.  But as the novel unfolds, Clarrisa becomes less and less likable as her shallowness is revealed.  All this as sympathy builds for Septimus, climaxing just as he throws himself out a window and ends it all.

Woolf writes engaging characters, that is when you can tell who she's talking about.  The frequent meandering passages involving a cavalcade of characters can be confusing, particularly since you can read for pages without ever encountering a name, only an endless collection of pronouns.

Mrs. Dalloway is a challenging read.  But it's also a reminder that it might not hurt to read the classics every now and then.  Here's to more classics in 2011.