Eileen Doktorski is an assistant professor of sculpture at Utah State University where she has taught since 2002. Her installation “Domestic Arsenal” is currently on display at the Salt Lake Art Center through May. Doktorski was a Fulbright Scholar at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland and has received awards for her work from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New Jersey State Council for the Arts and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Most recently she has received a 2007 Utah Arts Council Individual Artist Project Grant. Doktorski has had fifteen solo exhibitions of her work nationwide. She has a strong spirit of community activism and collaboration and has served in many capacities as an advocate for the arts.

What hangs above your mantel?

Nothing. My fireplace mantel is half a tree trunk – a thing of natural beauty that I meditate on. (see image below)

What is the most memorable exhibit you’ve seen recently?

Robert Taplin’s The Five Outer Planets at the Salt Lake Art Center was an amazing installation. Five glowing translucent figures (each having an opaque twin) engaged the space from floor to ceiling. Their varying sizes distorted my perception of the space making the center’s darkened gallery seem unimaginably vast.

What is your favorite building in Utah (and why)?

This is a hard one for me to answer, as I’m not sure I have a favorite. I’m rather more drawn to buildings that are in the process of being torn down. I love watching the deconstruction day by day… a ripped and torn skeletal structure and then…its no more.

On the Spot

This is our chance to check in with members of Utah’s art community to see what they’ve been reading, seeing, doing.