Utah Artist Profiles published in 15 Bytes, featuring magazine length profiles of Utah artists.
Stefanie Dykes has a busy fall. She has curated Poesis, a group exhibition of printmakers at Art Access (see our review) timed to coincide with the Rocky Mountain Printmaking Alliance Symposium (Oct. 9 – 12); and her work appears in In Good Company, an exhibition at the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre’s […]
Jorge Rojas was meant to be an artist. A soothsayer might have predicted it — seen it in the cards, the tea leaves, or, in Rojas’ case, the tortilla marks.
Bob Kleinschmidt, who taught printmaking at the University of Utah for 30 years, died peacefully Friday night, Aug. 2, at home surrounded by his family following an extended illness. His friend and colleague Joseph Marotta remembers him as the “Buddhist master of the Art and Art History Department […]
In 2001, after retiring as a professor of art at the University of Utah, Frank Anthony (Tony) Smith also retired from painting — and the art market.
During his 40-year career as an art teacher at the University of Utah and other universities and workshops, Smith succeeded as a dual-career player in the local and national art markets. He is best known for his innovative, illusionist nod to trompe l’oeil through his groundbreaking use of stenciling, cutting, taping, and airbrushing. “He’s fooling you, folks,” wrote Susan Mendelsohn in an undated essay. “These paintings are fancy bags of cheap tricks. They are trap doors and fake bottoms, things up his sleeve and wires and mirrors … It is an invisible experience in the imagination, which shows us how the world looks through Tony Smith’s eyes. Because of his pictures, we can ride piggyback into his encounter with reality. It’s a very remarkable ride.”
At one point, Maggie Willis envisioned being a genetic engineer. “I really love science and how things work, and the building blocks of life,” says the Arizona native. But she found an unconventional way of expressing this same sentiment in art, and found a stronger pull towards the creative […]
“Peonies VII,” etching by Jenni Christensen, photo by John Snyder “I have always loved flowers and the garden. The variation is endless.” – Jenni Christensen Although in the high desert of the Great Basin, you could mistake a small patch of Pleasant Grove, Utah, for a flower-filled backyard […]
To understand how immigrants can enrich our state and country, you need look no further than Pilar Pobil, ensconced in her beautiful home and garden. The Spanish painter and sculptor started her art career late, but made up for lost time with a prolific body of work full […]
“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” — Charles Horton Cooley How does a former sugar-cane company accountant from Brazil become an expressionist painter in Orem, Utah? Well, not without much difficulty. The story of Josie Bell — this year’s featured artist […]
There’s a common rule in the contemporary art world — go big, or go very, very small. Alison Neville chose the latter. From miniature dioramas that fit into sardine cans to tiny polymer mushrooms, Neville’s work is small in scale but rich in depth. Her art is […]
Pareidolia: It’s a term we rarely use for a process we frequently employ — the tendency to see forms in random, abstract patterns. It’s likely a survival instinct, since it is better to believe you see animals in the forest that are not there than not to see […]
Susan Makov was hiking the Uintas in 2015 when the surrounding stands of lodgepole pine suddenly mesmerized her, a moment that eventually would translate into the work she is creating today. “The trees were distressed and I became obsessed with it,” she says as we pull into the […]
One snowy day in 2011, Stephen Trimble and his wife, Joanne Slotnik, arrived at a grove on the lower slopes of Mount Rainier with the ashes of his father. Trimble was born in Denver in 1950 to Don and Isabelle Trimble. Isabelle grew up in a small Montana town. Don was a geologist who worked his way through college and graduate school as a hard rock miner at the tail end of the Depression. He was responsible for Steve’s interest in photography and the natural world, Isabelle for his interest in people, and both for his respect for storytelling. “Every vacation was a new national park, and on our road trips Dad kept up a running commentary on Western history and landscape,” Trimble remembers. “His stories sounded more like parable. He retold them to communicate his values.” With reverential regard, Don Trimble, who hailed from Toppenish, Washington, referred to Mount Rainier as “The Mountain.”
As she ripped up a book for her show at the downtown library, Kandace Steadman took a moment to enjoy the irony of that reckless yet considered act (adding to the rethinking of how books can be used in different contexts) then settled in for the well-thought-out process […]
During lunch at Kyoto, painter Oonju Chun asks, “Why do we say, ‘If I were . . .’ instead of ‘If I was . . .?”’ — one of those nitpicky English questions a writer hates to answer with “Ummmm . . .“ * But does. So, it […]
From fishing in streams and running with cousins, flying high on a swing or laying under the trees, childhood memories play an important role in the paintings of Colby Sanford. His most recent explorations focus extensively on memory and its metamorphosis in our minds to become something particularly […]
Though warned early in her career against pursuing a path as a portrait painter or becoming a mother, Mary Sauer has chosen to do both, persevering and following her dreams, no matter the resistance she finds along the way. Her dedication has paid off with her second baby […]
Jamie Wayman’s show at the Art Barn in 2003 drew approval from the 15 Bytes critic of the day, but Kasey Boone questioned whether an interesting idea might not become a gimmick, asking, “Can you paint underwater scenes your whole life?” The answer is, absolutely: Wayman’s career has […]
