Architecture of Memory and Place; Drawings, Lithographs and Assemblages of Abe Kimball

Abe Kimball is showing Architecture of Memory and Place at The George S. & Dolores Doré Eccles Gallery through November 20, with the exhibition running from October 8. The gallery is inside Salt Lake Community College's South City Campus, at 1575 S State Street.

Kimball is a printmaker and assemblage sculptor, and the show brings together both sides of his practice: drawings, lithographs, and sculptural assemblages. His lithographs are made on meticulously prepared limestone slabs, and Injuries and Greener Pastures is one of the pieces noted for its luminous colors. The assemblages are built from found objects, and much of that work portrays forgotten peoples and their material culture, placing cultural vestiges alongside the innocence of nature.

There's a bit of a family story behind his work. Kimball grew up watching his father, Wayne Kimball, a printmaker and teacher who once invited more than forty Utah artists to reinterpret one of his prints. Abe didn't set out to become an artist, partly to avoid following in his father's footsteps, but he's been immersed in the arts since childhood, learning the craft of lithography from him. He later trained at the Tamarind Institute in New Mexico and earned a BFA at Brigham Young University, along with degrees in sociocultural anthropology and interdisciplinary studies. That anthropology background informs a lot of what he does, especially the way he approaches those forgotten peoples in his assemblages.

These days he lives with his wife and children in the mountains of central Utah and teaches art in public schools and at Snow College. Architecture of Memory and Place runs through November 20 at the Eccles Gallery on the SLCC South City Campus.