“Driven to Abstraction,” an exhibition of painting and sculpture, features nationally-exhibited artists as well as local artists on Wall Avenue in downtown Ogden’s White Space art gallery.
White Space is small, classroom-sized nonprofit venue for contemporary art. The venue is open to exhibition proposals, but also curates its own exhibitions. Scott Patria founded White Space in June 2013, which also led him to manage, direct and curate other exhibitions as well.
Patria had the opportunity to curate a show when an exhibition was suddenly canceled, giving him the reins of White Space. He grabbed the opportunity in hopes of bringing something different to the area.
“I wanted to show something that doesn’t get shown that often in Ogden by bringing different subsets together in a show that made some sort of sense,” Patria said.
Patria began to search and connect with a number of artists whose work could be put together in one exhibition in which their artwork could be viewed individually or collectively.
One artist Patria connected with was Fred Hunger, 78, a WSU student, after he saw a piece of Hunger’s artwork at Grounds for Coffee on Harrison Boulevard. Patria contacted Hunger, did a home visits to see some of Hunger’s artwork and then invited him to participate in the exhibition. The concept for the exhibition as well as the venue appealed to Hunger.
“You can look at one piece and have enough room to see that one piece without the interference of other things, but yet everything fits together in the idea of ‘Driven to Abstraction,’” Hunger said.
Hunger is one of eight artists featured in the exhibition. Each artist in the exhibition addresses a different form of abstraction: geometric, minimal, gestural, intuitional or some combination.
The stark white venue displays “Orange Two” and “Yellow,” two of Hunger’s sculptures made from welded steel that is then powder coated.
Patria chose “Orange Two” and “Yellow” because they related to the exhibition.
“I looked at 12 to 15 of Hunger’s works and chose two based on what else was coming in and what I thought they would add to the exhibition and how they would relate to the other works in the show,” Patria said.
The end resulted in the exhibition “Driven to Abstraction.”
According to Patria, the exhibition is “a temporal and immersive sculpture in and of itself composed of discrete elements from a number of different artists.”
The exhibition is open until Nov. 22.
For information visit the White Space website.
