Education
1990 M.F.A., State University of New York at Buffalo, Printmaking/Painting
1988 B.F.A. Kutztown University, PA, Printmaking/Painting
1984-86 Undergraduate Cleveland Institute of Art
1982-84 Harrisburg Area Community College
Biographical Summary
The imagery in my work revolves around dreams, myth and spirituality.
For several years now, I have been very regimental about keeping a dream diary by my bed. Just scribbling a few notes when you wake in the night is crucial for remembering a dream the following morning. Dreams are important to me because they stand as a reminder that all is not orderly in the universe. Life is an enigma. Life is surprising. The unknown and the unknowable and our relative smallness in the universe are very important in maintaining my own spiritual ideology.
Apart from the exhilaration I feel from a powerful dream, these A night diaries@ also represent veiled insights into my own psyche. Houses, both strange and familiar, are reoccurring themes in my dreams, as well as elemental things such as wind, water and fire. I am aware of the Jungian impulse to interpret these things outright, but I am equally satisfied to be awed by the seemingly infinite and unknowable well that they originate from.
This makes most of my paintings very autobiographical. This self-indulgent stance is perhaps not very fashionable in the current postmodern trend to deal with global issues, politics or esoteric aesthetics Ultimately, I would like people to respond the same way I do to many early Christian works - not for religious reasons, but for the fact that they were often strange, unworldly, powerful and even fearsome objects of reverence.
I begin a painting by spilling and splashing liquefied paint onto the surface of a canvas; not unlike an abstract expressionist would. After the paint dries I begin to ARorschach@ images that my subconscious sees in the abstract puddles of paint. I then try to render in a more traditional manner- without completely disturbing the freshness of the spill- a representational narrative that often equals the strangeness and absurdity of dreams. Beauty, levity and horror are often combined in what I hope to be a seductive if not disturbing I appropriate imagery from the ancient past to popular culture and combine it with dream imagery. I then endeavor to create a sense of powerful myth and magic in the hope that I may create my own objects of reverence.
Professional Experience
Teaching and Related Experience
1995 to present Professor, Southern Utah University
1990 – 1995 Adjunct Professor – Harrisburg Area Community College
1988 – 1990 Teaching Assistantship – State University of New York at Buffalo
Exhibitions
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2007 Sears Gallery, St. George, Utah
2004 Gallery East – Price, Utah
2002 Springville Museum of Art – Springville, Utah
1991 Penn State University – Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2003 Glendinning Gallery – "Mythical Objects", Salt Lake City, Utah
1991
Doshi Center for Contemporary Art, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
1990 Bethune Gallery, Buffalo, New York
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2006 Ohio Sate University- “Mid America Print Council”, Athens, Ohio
2006 Rio Gallery- “Untitled”, Salt Lake City, Utah
2006 St. George Art Museum – “Dixie Regional”, St. George, Utah
2006 Springville Museum of Art "Get Real Figurative Art from SUU", Springville,
2005 New Visions Gallery "2002 Revisited," Salt Lake City, Utah
2005 Springville Musuem Art "81st Annual Spring Salon," Merid Award, Springville, Utah
2004 Fairview Museum of History & Art, "Permanent Collection," Fairview, Utah
2004 "A" Gallery, Salt Lake City, Utah
2004 Springville Museum of Art, "The Spiritual Show," Springville, Utah
2003 Rio Gallery, "Artist Grantees Exhibition, Salt Lake City, Utah
2002 Norman Building – "Utah Art 2002", Salt Lake City, Utah
2002 Fables Art Gallery - "Celebrating the Human Form", Salt Lake City, Utah
2001-2002 Springville Museum of Art – "Utah Art, Utah Artist: A 150 Year Survey", Springville, UT
2001 Gallery Eleven-Seven – "Objects de Mystique", Long Beach, California
2001 New Orleans Art Association – "Fresh Faces", New Orleans, Louisiana
2001 Center for Visual Arts – "2001 Midwest Winter Exhibition", Wausau, Wisconsin
2001 Springville Museum of Art – "77th Spring Salon", Merit Award, Springville, Utah
2000 Bradley University – "The 28th Bradley Print and Drawing Exhibition", Peoria, Illinois
2000 Springville Museum of Art – "The Spiritual Show", Merit Award, Springville, Utah
2000 Period Gallery – "Winterfest III International Art Exhibition", Omaha, Nebraska
2000 Finch Lane Gallery – "Four Person Exhibition", Salt Lake City, Utah
1999 St. George Art Museum – "Third Annual Regional", St. George, Utah
1999 Carnegie Mellon University – "Photogravure Exhibition", Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1999 Period Gallery – "Realism 99", Special Recognition, Omaha, Nebraska
1999 Springville Museum of Art – "75th Spring Salon", Merit Award, Springville, Utah
1998 Provincetown Art Association and Museum – "1998 National Competition", Provincetown, MA
1998 Cooperstown Art Association – "1998 National Competition", Award, Cooperstown, NY
1998 Springville Museum of Art – "74th Spring Salon", Springville, Uta
1997 Eccles Community Center – "Black and White", Ogden, Utah
1997 Eccles Community Art Center – "23rd Annual", Honorable Mention, Ogden, Utah
1997 Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art – "Art Equinox", Great Falls, Montana
1997 Artwest Gallery – "Art and Healing", Jackson, Wyoming
1997 Springville Museum of Art – "73rd Spring Salon", Springville, Utah
1996 Springville Museum of Art – "Spiritual Show", Springville, Utah
1995 Bradley University – "Bradley National Print &Drawing Exhibition", Merit Award, Peoria, IL
1994 Mesa Gallery – "Juried Show", Juror’s Award, Mesa, Arizona
1993 Kutztown University – "1st Annual Alumni Exhibition", Kutztown, Pennsylvania
1993 Elizabethtown College – "Juried Show", Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania 1
1992 San Diego Art Institute – "The Prints and the Paper", 1st Prize,San Diego, California
1991 Doshi Center for Contemporary Arts – "Realists", Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
1990 Albright-Knox Art Gallery – "43rd Western NY Exhibition",Frank J.Mohring Award, Buffalo NY
1988 Center for the Arts Muhlenburg College – "May Fair 88", Allentown, Pennsylvania
1988 University of North Dakota – "31st North Dakota Print and Drawing", Grand Forks, ND
1988 Sharadin Art Gallery – Kutztown, Pennsylvania
Publications
Acknowledged and work describes in "Utah Art", Swanson, Olpin and Seifrit. Published By Gibbs and Smith.
Work was highlighted and illustrated in "Utah Art, Utah Artists – 150 Year Survey", Swanson, Olpin, Poulton and Rogers.
Published by Gibbs and Smith. 2001
Grants
Utah Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2002
Anderson Ranch Art Center, Scholarship, Snowmass Village, Colorado, 1999
Mark Diamond Research Grant, Buffalo, New York, 1989
| Brian Hoover |