I have to say that photographs of the paintings of Fausto Fernandez, now on display in “The Virtue of Wisdom” at Gebert Contemporary on Scottsdale’s Main Street, really do not accurately depict them. You have to see the paintings in the flesh, so to speak, in order to get any…

It all began back in 1996, when Jeffrey Deitch of New York’s Deitch Gallery mounted an exhibition called “Shopping.” Never without his trademark pair of large, round eyeglasses, Deitch — who, by the way, recently became the director of L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art — hooked up 26 international artists…

Artist Colin Chillag keeps the titles to his new portrait paintings, now on display through October 30 at Pravus Gallery, refreshingly simple. Most are either labeled Portrait of a Man or Portrait of a Woman and, in one case, Portrait of a Man and Woman. But that’s where all simplicity…

Editor’s note: This story has been edited for clarity and accuracy since its initial publication. Long before it was fashionable (or commercially profitable), interdisciplinary artist Angela Ellsworth must have consulted some seer stones before she decided to focus on her well-rooted Mormon ancestry as subject matter for her art. Seer…

Art is art, no matter where you find it. Vietnamese-American artist/photographer Dinh Q. Lê has found it in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City (the city formerly known as Saigon), where he’s lived and worked for the past 12 years. Lucky for us, ASU Art Museum has brought his…

In the mid-1960s, when artist Chris Mars was 5 years old, his 16-year-old brother, Joe, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized because of his mental disorder. An incurable but now-treatable brain dysfunction, schizophrenia is often characterized by delusions, hallucinations (both visual and auditory), social withdrawal, and a sense of being…

‘Tis the season here in the Valley. Even die-hard Phoenicians flee from summer’s suffocating heat to anywhere remotely cooler. And, as sure as the thermometer will register 100 degrees, many Valley museums and galleries, scrounging for funding and patrons in even the best of economic times, dust off and recycle…

Long ago, Emily Post, that maven of manners for the would-be civilized, decreed that, ideally, you should behave around a disabled person the same way you would behave toward anyone else with no visible handicap. Important caveat: Never stare. If that’s the case, then artist Chris Rush has broken Ms…

A few years ago, craving a more forgiving climate, Steve and Andi Rosenstein decided to move family, business, and employees from Chicago to the eternal sunshine of North Scottsdale. They later sold their very profitable business and rejoiced in retiring. For the moment. Steve reveled in the clear blue sky…

Good news for those who are cruising the downtown galleries on March’s Third Friday Artwalk: You’ll be able to see Katherine Zsolt’s “Leaving My Father’s House” at the Icehouse and Bob Carey Ballerinas at Bokeh Gallery…

For centuries, fairy tales have held both adults and children in their magical sway. In actuality, these fanciful tales are basically mini-morality plays, spun to illustrate prevailing societal mores embraced by those rapt audiences. Through them, listeners have painlessly learned about the unquestionable reward of virtue (getting rich and/or living…

The art community grapevine in this Valley is about three inches long, so it didn’t take much time for me to get calls concerning a recent, very heated panel discussion at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SmoCA) about a show that’s been proposed called “People’s Biennial.”…

The starring ballerina is the same in all fourteen of the mysterious color photographs hanging in Bokeh Gallery, Wayne Rainey’s newest downtown Phoenix gallery venture dedicated solely to photographic art. Hairy barrel chest. Close-cropped haircut. Pink, stiff tulle tutu. Big muscular wrestler’s calves ending in big, slightly flat, bare feet…

Against absurd odds, Lisa Sette Gallery on Scottsdale’s Marshall Way can boast that three of her gallery artists — Enrique Chagoya, Claudio Dicochea and Angela Ellsworth — have been handpicked to show work at the 17th Biennale of Sydney, which runs from May 12 through August 2010. Sydney’s Biennale, a…

So maybe Roosevelt Row isn’t L.A.’s La Cienega in the 60s and our Grand Avenue ain’t exactly Soho in the 70s and 80s. And we can definitively say that Marcel Duchamp never played chess at Phoenix Art Museum with a nude Eve Babitz (or anyone else, clothed or naked, for…

I got a little misty a while ago when I received an e-mail from Kimber Lanning, owner and director of Modified Arts for the past 10 years. She announced she was handing over the reins of Modified to Phoenix newcomers Kim Larkin and Adam Murray, a husband-and-wife team who defected…

Phoenix artist Matthew Moore, who’s also a fourth-generation Arizona farmer, has just combined my two all-time favorite activities: food shopping and art viewing. His latest video installation, “Lifecycles,” which magically melds the two, is premiering at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival’s New Frontier exhibition. The event, curated by film festival…

Who knew that 35 years after people became excited about saving the planet that the subject would finally be taken seriously? Of course, we had to be bitch-slapped by the fact that there is no more snow on Mount Kilimanjaro and that polar bears are going the way of the…

In the past 20 years or so, Americans of all ethnicities throughout the country — especially here in the Southwest — have been making a big deal of Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration that spans several days and just happens to coincide with All…

If you pick up this week’s Best of Phoenix issue (trust us, you won’t be disappointed), you’ll notice something different this year as you read raptly through our awards for anything and everything notable in the Valley. This year, we asked artists and other creative types we know to come…