Trent Alvey

By Polly Mottonen

CATALYST art director Polly Mottonen writes:

When local treasure Trent Alvey called to invite me to her latest show, she mentioned her 1992 installation "Toaster Worship" had found a new home. The Utah Museum of Fine Art has just added it to its permanent collection. November to me is the smells and sounds of women in the kitchen. This piece emotes those kitchen imaginings and memories of the '50s and '60s in a charged way.

Trent is a traveler and her paintings, sculpture, assemblages, mixed media pieces, installations, performances and writings take you along on her expeditions into understanding.

See her new paintings and installation in her current show "Propensity for Repetition" at Phillips Gallery (downstairs, Dibble Gallery) through November 10th. 441 East 1st South. Of this show Trent writes:

Idea = Form

My work involves an ongoing question that I ask myself. "If I change my consciousness-in my own time and space-does that affect the larger consciousness?"

Life is recognizing patterns and naming them. Once we have the objects (all phenomena) named, we start making memories through stories, adding emotions and opinions to everything we experience. The result is an identity that we carry with us and reinforce every moment. We start to believe that we are this identity. Life is both the repetition of events and the compilation of memories, but life is ultimately the moment-with no past and no future. It is when we experience the timeless moment that we see ourselves, not as separate lives, but as consciousness itself. u

www.trentthursbyalvey.com

This article was originally published on November 27, 2006.