In the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary art, new mediums and materials constantly emerge, challenging conventional notions of what constitutes fine art. But sometimes we look to old materials and techniques and reimagine or recontextualize them. For centuries the result of practical necessity — and generally considered a folk […]
Twenty years ago, two recently graduated art students from the University of Utah were loath to give up the university experience. It was partly about the loss of facilities, which in the case of printmakers can be particularly burdensome and expensive to recreate in a home studio. But […]
There’s something familiar about this landscape, but it’s not quite right. Yes, the verdant, green foreground and the rounded, purple mountains in the distance speak of an abundance of water because, unlike the hard-edged verticals of the red rock, mesa country of southern Utah deserts, northern Utah took […]
“So many people have lost the proper way of living, but here it is.” The comment, delivered by someone contemplating two of the approximately 125 mostly woven works in The Threads That Bind Us, the annual exhibition by the Mary Meigs Atwater Weaver’s Guild at the Utah Cultural […]
Drive, walk or bike around downtown Salt Lake City and it won’t be long before you spot one of the many murals dotting the urban landscape. For this mural by Chuck Landvatter, however, you’ll have to go underground. Commissioned by the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in 2021, […]
We may be done here. From time to time, a new effort in a human enterprise so fully exceeds what has gone before that it becomes impossible to speak of the new in the language that was adequate to discuss what came before. Imagine trying to explain to […]
You will have your own thoughts, but for our take, at least this year, September is the best month to see art in Utah. In addition to the regular series of exhibitions at galleries, museums and other fixed, brick-and-mortar venues (see here for our listings from across the […]
There’s a device filmmakers use to show the passage of time. It starts with a closeup of a calendar—the type where each day is a single page that is torn off to mark the arrival of a new day. On film, the pages slip off as if being […]
Sue Martin spent nearly four weeks in Italy in July in a graduate course offered by the Institute of Christian Studies in Toronto. The course included a seminar on the intersection of philosophy, religion, and art, plus a visual art workshop. “My prior art history and philosophy education […]
Summer, when the days are long and the painting festivals numerous, is often the busiest time of the year for plein air painters and John Hughes often feels that he overbooks himself during these months. This summer, his painting travels took him from Utah to Southern California, back […]
If you like your skateboard decks artistic, but whole, rather than chopped up and stitched together (see here), the Urban Arts Gallery’s annual skateboard deck competition may be your thing. Every year in conjunction with the Utah Arts Alliance’s Urban Arts Festival, the gallery and streetwear shop located […]
In Roger and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, Maria says that “when God closes a door, he opens a window,” alluding to the hope of new opportunities presented in the face of current obstacles. When an artist chooses to work from within a specific culture and experience, possibly […]
Carly White is easy to pick out in a crowd — her red hair and bright smile make sure of that. It’s even easier to identify her as some sort of creative type, dressed as she often is in a perfectly styled, colorful mix of vintage and modern […]
Portraits are almost awkward by definition: how to pose; to smile or not to smile; what to include in the background. All these decisions, and the primary decision to have ones portrait painted in the first place, give all but the best portraits a sense of awkwardness. Self-portraits […]
There are 11 paintings by Pablo Cruz-Ayala, collectively titled Intersections of an Immigrant, at Finch Lane Gallery and one at Salt Lake Community College, where it’s part of their 75th Anniversary Alumni Show. In them, Cruz-Ayala employs a wide variety of media, but the first impression they make […]
At South Salt Lake’s newest art gallery, Material, collaboration and community are the same word. Born from the creative minds of local art personas Jorge Rojas and Colour Maisch, Material stands as a model for the progressive art gallery. “As Salt Lake City continues to grow and rents […]
The Biblical Book of Genesis, with all its great visual tropes — the creation of all from nothing, division of light from dark, story of the Fall, and so on — has been enormously popular with artists at least since Medieval times. The third chapter begins with the […]