2024 Utah Artist Fellowship Recipients
The Utah Division of Arts & Museums has announced the 15 Utah artists in design, performing, and visual arts who have been awarded $5,000 fellowships to recognize their individual artistic excellence and support their professional careers. The fellowship provides unrestricted cash awards based on review by prominent arts professionals outside of Utah. This year, Carla Diana served as the design arts juror; Alexandra James was the performing arts juror; and Rachelle Pablo served as the visual arts juror.
DESIGN ARTS
JUROR: CARLA DIANA
PERFORMING ARTS (DANCE)
JUROR: ALEXANDRA JAMES
VISUAL ARTS
JUROR: RACHELLE B. PABLO
You can read the jurors’ comments here: https://artsandmuseums.utah.gov/2024-utah-artist-fellowship-recipients/
5/27 DESERET NEWS: Painting Trump out of a corner
2,000 miles from the Manhattan courthouse, artist Jon McNaughton is preparing for the worst
Jon McNaughton keeps a dizzying pace. During one particularly prolific burst in early 2020, he released paintings every few weeks, each one more astonishing than the next. The first one, of Donald Trump wearing fringed cowboy chaps atop a bucking bronco, was simply titled “2020 Ride.” Then it was Trump addressing a gaggle of clown-faced reporters. Then, when Trump’s impeachment trial launched, a group of congressional Democrats (and Mitt Romney) with pitchforks and torches. Then, when the pandemic hit, Trump dramatically ripping off his mask. Then, when Black Lives Matter protests rocked the country, a remake of Goya’s “The Third of May 1808,” except the French troops were replaced by flag-burning leftists, and the Spanish insurgents donned MAGA hats.
But now, six months before Election Day, it’s been months since McNaughton’s last release.
5/27 SLTRIB: Iconic Salt Lake City art installation to take flight again downtown
The popular downtown sculpture known as “The Gulls of Salt Lake City” is finally slated to rise from its boxes and take wing again.
The towering bronze-on-nickel depiction of wheeling sea gulls in flight, created by the late California artist Tom Van Sant, was long a fixture on Salt Lake City’s Main Street, attached to what was the Prudential Federal Savings building at 115 S. Main Street.
Its immense metal birds and connecting rods remain dismantled and in storage since the artwork’s 2014 removal to make way for demolitions and subsequent construction of the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater, which opened in 2016.
5/19 SLTRIB: SLC’s west side to get its own 9th and 9th whale-size art
A pair of 9th and 9th whale-size public art pieces is slated to surface on the city’s west side.
The towering whale, titled Out of the Blue, has drawn criticism and a legion of loyal fans since its 2022 installation, inspiring T-shirts, an ultramarathon, even an entire spoof religion.
Now, west-side neighborhoods are teed up for their own major art pieces.
5/14 SOUTHWEST CONTEMPORARY: From Utah’s Geographical Center, an Argument for Decentralizing Arts Discourse
Utah’s mainstream art history is easy to trace, with the Utah Museum of Fine Arts striking the match in 1914, Art Barn and what is now known as the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art introducing contemporary art in 1931, and the Springville Museum of Art (an offshoot of the 100-year-old Spring Salon exhibition series) following in 1937. Each institution served as a cornerstone establishing the presence of the art world’s many facets within Utah culture and setting the scene for more diverse museums and galleries such as Mestizo Arts (where I serve as curator and event organizer) and Medium Gallery to build on that initial work. But the question about what constitutes a “center for art” in Utah is a much more complicated question with a nuanced answer.
UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Categories: Local Art News | Mixed Media | Recognized
