USU Eastern Press Release
The third and final exhibit of 2021 will be artwork by Marion Hyde, a Logan artist and the retired chair of Utah State University’s art department. The exhibit, titled “Marion Hyde: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, 1960 – 2021,” will run from Nov. 2 through Dec. 10 in USU Eastern’s Gallery East .
Hyde explained that the images in this exhibit are based on words written by Edmund Burke in his philosophical inquiry, “Sublime and Beautiful,” published in 1756. “Burke considered the ‘sublime’ of nature to be the untamed aspects, forbidding and terrible. The ‘beautiful’ examined the peaceful, lyrical qualities that were secure for man. The images in this exhibition may not be forbidding and terrible, but the concern is one of focusing on the uncultivated landscape. This is a landscape of beauty, mystery and uncertainty.”
He said, “The formally composed work of art focuses on the act of bringing together the separate parts, the lines, shapes, colors and space, combining them in an aggregate binding each to the other forming an expressive unity…a wholeness. A change or modification to the composition requires a reconfiguration of the elements.”
“Introducing a new color or shape requires the adjustment of existing colors and shapes to maintain an equilibrium,” he said. “This kind of equilibrium produces tensional events on the pictorial field. The events in these images are established with shapes, colors and space that are derived from the examination of the landscape sublime. The objective is one of configuring visual patterns into a pictorial metaphor confirming the beauty and mystery of nature.”
Hyde was born in Tremonton, Utah in 1938. Often termed a realistic stylist, he works in paint, woodcut/engraving and sculpture. He earned his BFA in 1962 and his MFA in 1969 from Utah State University.
He has had solo exhibitions at the Kimball Art Center, Plum Tree Gallery and North Hennepin College in Minnesota and group exhibitions that included national print shows in Connecticut and at Trenton State College in New Jersey.
He was a faculty member of Utah State University’s art department until he retired as associate professor emeritus of printmaking and drawing and past department head. He resides in North Logan.
Gallery East is located in the Central Instruction Building and its exhibits are free and open to the public during the academic year from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and is closed weekends and holidays. The gallery observes COVID-19 precautions, including face coverings and a limit of 10 people in the gallery at one time.
An artist’s reception will be Nov. 12 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the gallery. Contact Noel Carmack at (435) 613-5241 or email noel.carmack@usu.edu for any questions about the exhibit.
