During the month of February we ask Utah artists about a specific piece of art or artist, living or not, local or global, that has sparked their curiosity or influenced their work. We run their responses throughout the month.
Museums, hikes, restaurants — parents expose their children to a variety of experiences, never knowing what might stick. Shauntel Clements’ parents couldn’t have known that, when they stopped to tour the Maynard Dixon home, the experience would remain with their 10 year-old daughter, and inspire her artistic career. […]
The first real art Dennis Stott encountered was a drawing he discovered as a young boy while rummaging through an old, roll-top desk. That small artifact set him on a path that took him first to Butte College then CSUC in northern California. It was at Chico State […]
For nearly three decades in his role as a professor of ceramics at Brigham Young University’s department of art, and as an award-winning artist with a long list of regional and national exhibitions on his CV, Brian Christensen has been able to observe the changing critical and commercial […]
When Claire Tollstrup thinks about influence her first thoughts go to Monet, though Mary Cassatt would be a close second. “Claude Monet showed in his later work how to be free in his paintings. His loose brush strokes give every artist permission to be themselves and to interpret […]
Those of a certain age may remember the 1997 exhibition of James Castle at the Salt Lake Art Center, back when Ric Collier was the director: small works on cardboard, depicting interior settings and rural scenes, made using the Idaho artist’s spit mixed with soot from the fireplace. […]
Sam Forlenza says that whether working as a clinical psychologist or as an artist, “tapping into feelings is critical. I seek to uncover emotions known or unknown, old, or new.” A native of Newark, NJ, Forlenza has an undergraduate degree in Fine Arts from Rutgers University (where he […]
“Drawing is at the center of what I do,” says Suzanne Bybee, a Salt Lake City artist who relocated to Utah after living in Washington, D.C. for many years. “[My] pieces are conversations; my aim is to listen and be a part of the dialogue developing, learning from […]
When Richard Taylor scrawls mathematical equations across a canvas, as he does in his 2019 piece “Schwarzschild and all that,” or invokes a German physicist and astronomer in the title, it’s not some form of intellectual posing, an aesthete veering sharply out of his lane. The Salt Lake […]
Joseph Toney looks to a variety of sources for influence. He aspires to be like Albrecht Dürer, the German Renaissance artist who was an early typeface designer, mathematician, painter, illustrator and printmaker, by mastering several mediums. He looks to 20th-century art movements like Cubism, Futurism and Op Art […]
Colour Maisch says she loves artists “who are able to distill an idea down to a primary form or space and allow some breathing room.” It’s the kind of art that provides a break “from a constant barrage of meaningless chatter.” Martin Puryear is just such an artist. […]
“I have a major art crush on John McAllister,” says Nancy Andruk Olson. She found him on Instagram, which she began using a few years ago when she was getting back into painting after a motherhood-inspired hiatus. “Like all major crushes, I use the internet to stalk him […]
Bernard Meyers’ graduate thesis explored the roots of creative expression and paths to moments of inspiration, so you’d think he’d be fairly verbose about the artists that have inspired him. But some points of inspiration are so powerful it’s enough to simply point and says: “There.” Meyer took […]
Emilia Wing says she has been drawn to the work of Gustav Klimt, ever since she discovered the artist as a child. “I didn’t know what it was about his work, but I remember not being able to take my eyes off of his paintings,” she says. “Something […]
Pick just one artist you love. It’s not an easy thing. But if you’re thinking about it and there’s one artist you keep coming back to, again and again (and again), maybe that’s the one.
For Rachel Henriksen it’s the late, Cuban-bornFelix Gonzalez-Torres.
“There are artists that you fall in love with because of their use of color, their subject matter, their sense of humor conveyed in their art – Wayne Thiebaud is ‘all of the above’ for me,” says Paul Heath. Heath was first introduced to Thiebaud’s artwork in the […]
