This is my gift to you, this story that is also a song, these words that are a part of Fokir. Such flaws as there are in my rendition of it I do not regret, for perhaps they will prevent me from fading from sight, as a good translator should. For once, I shall be glad if my imperfections render me visible. —Kanai, the translator in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide

In translation, the voice of the translator is generally considered an imperfection, an inbetween that, almost by definition, generates background noise or static. The original, the ideal, becomes impure. The magical transformation is disturbed, the imperfection an unwanted sign of life disturbing its environment of language.

Part limb or trunk, part processed lumber, these translations of tree forms show signs of humans: tools, furniture, hair, squared and planed lumber. In Crest, branches extend, not from a trunk, but from the legs of a chair that has tipped over backwards. The white desiccated blossoms foam like the crest of a breaking wave. In American Cherry, a species of tree that is part of America’s mythology of presidential honesty, the tree is inverted. Its trunk transforms into wire-form lattice and slumps, perhaps melted. While the transitions from the natural to the human-made can be subtle, the change is obvious, the voice of the
translator apparent.

We are embedded in our environment and are a real part of nature. Yet, ironically, it seems to be a human tendency to create idealized visions of the natural world—visions that are romantic and unrealistic and, hence, projections of our species’ desire for perfection and flawlessness. Our visions often overlook, or at least try to ignore, what we consider imperfections.

Perfect translation is an illusion. The value of imperfection is lost when we blindly adhere to ideals of purity, especially at the expense of honesty.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book and a Washington Post, Time, Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, Chicago Tribune, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2018

“The best novel ever written about trees, and really just one of the best novels, period.” ―Ann Patchett

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’s twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Richard Powers is the author of twelve novels. In addition to his recent Pulitzer Prize for The Overstory, he is also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Book Award, and he has been a four-time National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Email nancy.stoaks@kimballartcenter.org to RSVP!

I see an emphasis on emotion over illustration of traditional Chinese ink painters. I see the idea to give randomness a sense of order in the works of Jackson Pollock. I also see a journey to search for an ideal balance between aesthetics quality and conceptual idea in the photographs of Richard Avedon. Those ideas have come together and collided in Photographic Brushstroke, a series of photographic artworks that I have been working on since 2008. By using digital photography, a newborn art form, then combining it with the essence of Chinese painting, one of the oldest continuous artistic practices, I have created a body of photographs bringing traditions to the forefront again while giving them a breath of fresh air of the technological advances of the twenty-first century. A reminder that we are the intersection of what came before us and what is yet to come.

Our lives are filled with stories, positive and negative, humorous and heartbreaking. They live on in our memories, informing our daily routines and relationships, resurfacing from time to time as guides for what to do next—or what not to do. This exhibition focuses on what mothers teach us, both individually and collectively.

In Pam Bowman’s installation, six story fragments from her life resonate universally as she addresses the formative issues of character development, individual purpose, and body image, as taught by her mother. These retellings in such items as trophies, resin grapes, and diet books explore how our experiences simultaneously shape us and teach us to shape ourselves. 

Jacqui Larsen’s paintings take a metaphoric look at the impossible charge of any guardian to stand as lookout for a child. Their task is to ferret out the danger and forge a path ahead, all while dispensing crucial advice: “Look both ways,” “Soap is cheap,” and “Never say never.”  

Upcoming Programming:

Kimball Art Center is excited to be partnering with The Bee, Salt Lake City’s beloved monthly gathering of brave storytellers and attentive listeners, to host a storytelling workshop drawing on the themes of our exhibition of Things My Mother Taught Me. Learn more about this event here.

Join us as we discuss When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice by Terry Tempest Williams. Uniting art and literature, let’s come together for an engaging conversation that will expand our experience of the book as well and how it relates to this exhibition. Learn more here.

Parker is an outdoor-focused illustrator and graphic designer, primarily based out of Park City, Utah. Initially trained as a landscape architect, his design style can be traced back to thousands of hours spent at the drafting table. Regularly drawing en plein air, his pieces are inspired by the landscapes, city scenes, and big rocks he’s come across while traveling. Through his sketchbooks, paintings, and hand-drawn collages he seeks to capture the subtly interconnected elements that create a sense of place.
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Parker es un ilustrador y diseñador gráfico enfocado en el exterior, principalmente con base en Park City, Utah. Inicialmente entrenado como arquitecto paisajista, su estilo de diseño puede remontarse a miles de horas en la mesa de dibujo. Dibujando regularmente al aire libre, sus piezas están inspiradas por paisajes, escenas de la ciudad y grandes rocas con las cuales se ha topado al viajar. A través de sus cuadernos de dibujo, pinturas y collages dibujados a mano, busca capturar los elementos sutilmente interconectados que crean un sentido de lugar.