Cara Despain whispers 'timbre!'

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Just when you fear that Salt Lake's art scene can be summed up by single plein-air barn painting, a twee sculpture of children at play, an oil group shot of Jeebus and the Indians or an "edgy" wall-size print of a goth matryoshka doll — you blunder down a staircase to be confronted by Cara Despain's "timbre."

Filmed on a tiny set populated by odd mini-sculptures, Despain's stop-action animation video is projected on a wall of the Stolen & Escaped Gallery.

"I want to have viewers enter into the work when they come down the stairs," Despain recently told Daisy Blake of Now In Salt Lake. "The set is very tiny and I like the idea of it becoming large, and the viewers having a life-size relationship to it."

"timbre" can be seen through Oct. 14, but because of the complexity of multi-media installation, viewing is by appointment only at the S&E Gallery, down the rabbit-hole staircase at Frosty Darling, 177 E. 300 South, Salt Lake City). Arrange a viewing through caradespain.com or stolenandescapted.wordpress.com.