An old car can become an unusually precise record of a life: where you went, what you carried and which version of yourself was driving.
Utah Valley artist and writer Madeline Rupard makes that relationship the subject of 2002 Subaru Forester at UMOCA. The exhibition is listed in the museum’s Projects Gallery through January 2, 2027.
According to UMOCA, Rupard bought the blue car in 2020 while living in Queens. It became a companion for cross-country journeys. The paintings and texts in the show draw on a later, final drive, made while she was grieving a friend and approaching the sale of the vehicle.
The local connection is direct. Rupard holds degrees from Pratt Institute and Brigham Young University, and UMOCA’s biography says she joined BYU as an assistant professor of art in 2024.
A Subaru is familiar territory in Utah. Here it becomes a way to approach a less easily named subject: the attachment we develop to ordinary things that remain with us while everything else changes.
This is an exhibition preview based on the museum’s account, not a claim that The Utah Times attended the show.