Dissolving Contradictions

Exhibit by youth of Salt Lake City • Exhibit runs from Dec 5, 2022 to Jan 4, 2023.

EXHIBITION STATEMENT
Dissolving Contradictions is a two-fold exhibition: it includes a series of paintings by incarcerated youth from the Salt Lake City area as well as a large-scale “multi-vocal” painting (Clouds) made by over 200 citizens of Salt Lake City. The title of the exhibition unites all the paintings on display: All of them utilize art as a space where we can practice dissolving contradictions between how the world is, and how we imagine it could be.

UTAH TECH’S HIGHER EDUCATION FOR INCARCERATED YOUTH PROGRAM
During a college-credit art seminar taught by Mollie Hosmer-Dillard through Utah Tech University, incarcerated youth discussed surrealism and the freedom and possibilities offered by the blank canvas. They created the personal narrative paintings on display here in response to a prompt from Franklin Rosemont in which he describes surrealism as “the exaltation of freedom, revolt, imagination, and love… Its basic aim is to lessen and eventually to completely resolve the contradiction between everyday life and our wildest dreams.”

CLOUDS: A MULTI-VOCAL PAINTING
The large piece on display is a “multi-vocal” painting, an innovation by Hosmer-Dillard that refers to a painting created by many different people. In more than 35 workshops held throughout Salt Lake City, Hosmer-Dillard engaged over 200 people to create this piece. Many of the groups Hosmer-Dillard chose to engage are ones often underrepresented by the society we live in, including people experiencing homelessness, incarcerated youth, autistic children, deaf children, seniors, and people in hospice. The parameters were simple: Each person selected a cluster of wooden laser-cut tiles, chose from a selection of blue and white paint, and was invited to paint clouds.
The finished painting celebrates a variety of approaches, in what Hosmer-Dillard says is a critique of the Western world’s emphasis on the single individual. She wanted to create a vision of a different social reality, a visible disruption of Western society’s isolating focus. Clouds was made possible with a grant from the Salt Lake City Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.