A linen print tacked to the gallery wall beckons our gaze with its earth-colored, vertically-configured shapes. At proximity, the planes of color converge with bold, textured patterns and strategically placed outlines that reveal the underlying canvas. Immersed in the scene is a standing figure — a maid — […]
“Can someone’s haircut tell you when their life fell apart?”
So begins Andrew Grace’s After College, this year’s Honorable Mention in Utah’s Original Writing Competition. Read on!
It quickly becomes apparent from her Instagram posts that Terri Froelich takes countless photos of her nautical environment, mostly shot close enough to isolate textures like wood grain, rusty industrial decay, sun-dappling on water and any bright colors that sport unexpectedly on the dull fabric of the everyday. […]
The quarterly Humanities Magazine, a publication of the National Endowment for the Humanities, featured Utah Humanities’ Executive Director Jodi Graham in the most recent issue. The highlight gave Utah Humanities a national platform for sharing our deep, statewide work and Jodi’s vision for the influence the humanities can […]
Nicknamed the Beehive state, Utah proudly integrates imagery of beehives into many aspects of its being: the state flag, road markers, architecture, and more. The beehive has roots in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the arrival in the land Brigham Young named “Deseret,” or […]
Back in school we learned that a line has one dimension: length. A plane measures two ways: length and width. Space, of course, has three dimensions. Art schools tell us that if it has three dimensions it’s a sculpture, while if it only possesses two, it’s a painting. […]
We’re frequently posting news on murals, street art and public art projects in the Salt Lake City area — capitol city, location of our headquarters and all that. But other municipalities in Utah are not willing to sit idly by while SLC paints its walls. Certainly not Provo, […]
Since a majority of the state’s residents adhere to teachings from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, religion in Utah can often feel homogeneous. Because of this, we often make assumptions concerning the religious and spiritual beliefs of individuals around us. It is this climate that […]
“Lincoln Park Arboretum,” one of eight multi-part and five single-panel paintings at Phillips Gallery, sets up a paradigm and writes subtext for all 13 paintings. The celebrated arboretum was presumably the focus of a visit to Seattle by both Joseph and Melinda Ostraff, she in her role as […]
Ellen Meloy combines the contemplative life of meditation with being fully engaged in nature: I no longer want to know the names of things. I do not care if I am mute or it my tongue is useless for everything but the taste of salt. The verbal map […]
Over the past ten years Gary Swanson has completed a couple dozen interior and exterior murals in the Salt Lake City area, including Gallenson’s Gun Shop, Fat Cats Bowling, Purgatory Bar and Settebello Pizzeria. His latest mural is on the north side of Caputo’s Market & Deli […]
Chris Peterson has a studio in Holladay, but his mural practice has taken him all across the Salt Lake Valley and further afield in the American West. As part of Visit Salt Lake’s “West of Conventional” campaign, Peterson recently completed a mural on the east side of the […]
UtahPresents has brought a potpourri of performances to Salt Lake City’s Kingsbury Hall. Within this wide expanse, Cirque Mechanics is perhaps the most unconventional of troupes to tromp on its stage. Acclaimed as the most recent reincarnation of circus, the group displays a prestigious cast with many Cirque […]
The year was 2004 … and 15 Bytes went silent. Most art galleries and organizations last a couple of years before they give up or disappear. 15 Bytes lasted three. But before we called it quits in August of 2004, we were keeping up with what was going […]
The act of pairing in a diptych offers the artist a diverse set of methods for storytelling: there is room for direct comparison, but also for extension. In the case of the latter, the structure allows for further exploration of a theme unbound by a singular canvas. Simply […]
ROBERT ARNESON’S “NOSE BRICK” DONATED TO NEHMA
Self-portraiture is recurrent theme throughout Robert Arneson’s productive career as a ceramic artist. “Nose Brick,” from 1978, is another twist on this theme—however, here the self-portrait is only of his nose, and it protrudes from the end of the brick form.
Arneson uses humor and self-deprecation to comment on a variety of things ranging from Western civilization, reverence of the artist in their own work, identity, and the complicated history of ceramics in the fine arts having historically been relegated to utilitarian, functional objects. As a standard industrialized material, Arneson was also commenting on the work of Minimalist sculptors such as Carl Andre, who in the 1970s dominated the contemporary art world with simple block forms hanging from a wall.
Arneson was born in California in 1930 and studied with ceramicists Anthony Prieto at Mills College and Peter Voulkos at the University of California, Berkeley. He was head of the ceramics department at the University of California, Davis from 1962–1991 and is considered the father of the Bay Area Funk Art movement.
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UMFA ACQUIRES WORKS BY CHIURA OBATA
Thirty-five works by Chiura Obata, one of the most significant Japanese American artists of the twentieth century, are now in the permanent collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah—thanks to a generous gift from the Obata estate.
“We are thrilled that art lovers will have the opportunity to appreciate and study these works by our grandfather,” said Kimi Hill of the Obata family. “Because many of these artworks were created in Utah, we hope people will be inspired to learn the history of wartime incarceration and go visit the actual camp site in Delta as well as the Topaz Museum. Obata never wavered from the inspiration he found in nature and his faith in the power of creativity. The solace that Obata found in the beauty of the Utah desert landscape was profound. We appreciate UMFA for wanting to share his vision with the people of Utah.”
Obata was an influential artist and teacher notable not only for the beauty, variety, and quality of his work but also for his compelling life story as an immigrant American. He was an esteemed professor of art at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading figure in the California art scene, when World War II and a shameful chapter of American xenophobia interrupted. In 1942, Obata and his family were unjustly incarcerated, with thousands of other Americans of Japanese ancestry, at the Topaz Relocation Center in Delta, Utah. He continued to produce creative work throughout his eight months in the Utah desert and even administered an art school, where he and fellow artists provided art education.
The gift to the UMFA collection consists of drawings and watercolors Obata created from 1934 to 1943, including many he made to record his incarceration at Topaz. Obata’s depictions of life as an internee in Utah, as well as watercolors, drawings, and prints of flowers, animals, and iconic California landscapes, resonated deeply with local audiences in 2018, when a major retrospective, Chiura Obata: An American Modern, traveled to the UMFA. His work was also featured prominently in When Words Weren’t Enough: Works on Paper from Topaz, 1942–1945, the 2015 inaugural exhibition for the Topaz Museum in Delta.
Tom Alder: My Third Reason for Collecting Art
“Whenever someone asks me how I go about collecting early Utah art,” Alder wrote, “I tell them my three rules: 1) I must like the particular artwork, 2) I must admire the artist and 3) (optional) an interesting story or provenance connected to the particular work of art will strengthen my decision to purchase it.”
Those interesting stories formed the basis for Tom’s column.
Paul Heath is a graduate of the University of Utah and lives and works in Salt Lake.
“I characterize my work as “Pop-Nostalgia”. As a lifetime Salt Lake City resident, I draw inspiration from the awesome neon signs we have around us. I see my work as playful documentation, looking at objects and neighborhood niches through a lighter lens. I also paint images of older antique toys… to elicit a smile or friendly smirk. My art heroes are Andy Warhol, Red Grooms and Wayne Thiebaud.”
To discover more artists, visit our Utah Artists Directory
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