Please join us for a free panel discussion inspired by RED:
RELATIONSHIPS IN RED

Sponsored by the Utah Humanities Council

Our conversation will investigate the very dynamic relationships broached in the play: the artist and his creations; mentor and pupil; and the established, acknowledged artist versus the rising generation. With local artists, gallerists, and aficionados we'll explore where the tension and resolution lie in these associations, inspired by Rothko, a man of fierce opinions and deep passion for his work, with which he was in constant dialogue. We'd love your company and insights!

Moderated by Pat Shea

Panelists: Maureen O'Hara Ure, John Sproul, Cara Despain, Kenny Riches

MAUREEN O'HARA URE

Panelist Maureen O'Hara Ure, whose paintings will be in SLAC's Green Room Gallery during the run of RED, is an Assistant Professor/Lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Utah, where she teaches studio courses in Painting and Drawing and an introductory lecture course on contemporary trends. As faculty affiliated with the Honors College, she also conducts a seminar on Creative Process. She has had many one-person exhibitions, has participated in Sundance Institute Playwrights Lab, and has received several significant grants in support of her work. In addition to shows in Los Angeles (SPACE), Chicago (ARC/Raw Space), and Sacramento (Matrix Gallery), O'Hara Ure exhibits regularly in Salt Lake City in assorted non-profit spaces and at Phillips Gallery. Her most recent Phillips show, Sightseeing, featured a series of paintings in response to the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna, Venice, and Istanbul. Many of her paintings feature animals in imaginary landscapes, inspired by the historical forms encountered on her travels, in medieval stonework, manuscripts, and other museum artifacts. In October 2012, she will present an exhibition of image and text at Finch Lane Gallery, a project which will feature poems by her long-time collaborator (and fellow U of U professor) Katharine Coles. The following summer, their other large work-in-progress, a bestiary, will be published by Marriott Library's Red Butte Press.

JOHN SPROUL

Panelist John Sproul will lend his insight as co-founder and owner of Nox Contemporary, a Salt Lake City-based contemporary art gallery that seeks to exhibit all forms of contemporary art without regard to commercial viability. A native of Los Angeles, Sproul earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the University of Utah in 1993. He has exhibited widely in Utah and throughout the US, including at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Springville Museum of Fine Arts, and the Salt Lake Art Center. Competitions include a May 1998 exhibit at the California Center for Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), a purchase award from the Eccles Art Center (Ogden), and a Traveling Exhibit Award from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Sproul focuses his gallery's efforts on exhibiting high-quality, challenging work from emerging and established local and national artists and to increase Salt Lake City's visibility as a participant in the global contemporary art dialogue. Chair of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts Young Benefactors Council, he advocates on behalf of art and artists as founder of the Utah Foster Art Program, which lends pieces of art to local individuals and businesses — to expose viewers to art they otherwise might not choose to experience in their own environments as well as to expose artists to a larger audience. Since its inception in 2009, more than 100 local community members and businesses have participated.

CARA DESPAIN

Panelist Cara Despain is a Salt Lake City-based artist and independent art writer and curator. She holds a BFA from the University of Utah (2006), and has shown her work throughout Utah and in Miami, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn. Despain is also a faculty member at the Visual Art Institute (VAI) in Salt Lake City. In 2009, she co-founded GARFO Art Center — a curatorial and educational institution created as a function of VAI — where she worked as curator. Since GARFO's closure in 2011, she has continued to pursue independent/guest curatorial projects. This year, she completed her first short artist bio book the beginning of now: the work of Jim Williams. She has written for various local, national, and international publications, including ArtWeek and ArtPulse, and has lived brief stints outside of Utah in Boston, Berlin, and Miami.

KENNY RICHES

Panelist Kenny Riches is the former director of Kayo Gallery and a practicing visual artist, curator, and filmmaker. He started Kayo in downtown Salt Lake City when he was 22; it quickly became an award-winning art gallery and solidified the Broadway district as a hotspot for young, independent business. Within a three-block span on Broadway, he partnered to help launch four other independent businesses; including a café, an art boutique, and two clothing boutiques. In 2009 he and co-creator/curator Cara Despain began Garfo Art Center — a nonprofit art institution and exhibition space created to work in conjunction with the Visual Art Institute. Riches wrote, directed, and co-produced his first feature film, Must Come Down, in 2010. The film is now currently making its rounds in the festival circuit, premiering at Cinequest San José in 2012. He is currently writing his second feature film and continues to make and exhibit his artwork.

PAT SHEA

Pat Shea will serve as our moderator. He is both a fan of Mark Rothko's work and one of the nation's most highly respected attorneys, with extensive experience in the private and public sectors. He and his firm specialize in solving business problems which involve legal, political, environmental and economic questions. Shea maintains Bar membership in the District of Columbia and Utah, and was admitted to practice before the 10th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. His academic background includes a BA from Stanford University (where he was also a Rhodes Scholar and Student Body President), an MA from Oxford University in human sciences (where he was that school's first graduate of a combined genetics, ethnology and anthropology degree), and a JD from Harvard Law School.

A Utah native, Shea's public service includes key positions in Washington, DC, including Assistant to the Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Operations; Counsel on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Director of the Bureau of Land Management and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals under the Clinton Administration. Shea also represents the University of Utah's Department of Physics in implementing an international high-energy particle physics experiment. He was Adjunct Professor of agronomy at Kansas State University and an advisor at Westminster College for faculty grants and student scholarships, and has taught at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah, where he is now an Associate Research Professor of Biology.