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.
Behind the cover of Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Gallerists But Were Afraid To Ask you won’t find the tell-all the title suggests. There are no salacious anecdotes from the big-name gallerists that have attained rockstar status in today’s international art world. For the most part the 51 […]
I hate art, the art world, and everything that comes of it. Wait, no. I love it. I couldn’t live without it. Images, and their subsequent appreciation, are what give my life color. This is going to be rough. Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop is an incredibly relevant, coherent […]
by Kandace Steadman Action figures and cartoon characters live in the work and real life of artist Joe Wilson, a forgotten artist in the chronicle of Utah art. Joseph Francis Marion Wilson, better known as Joe, was born in Salt Lake City in 1913. He spent his early […]
Film Review A Conflicted Radiance A new film on Jean-Michel Basquiat by Davey Davis Of the people who know the childlike, energy-filled, and massively busy works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, most are familiar with the orbiting cautionary tale of success and the art market which consumed and destroyed him, […]
by Lisa B. Huber Just over a year ago, the St. George Art Academy was a random list of wishes in the brains of two St. George natives, Alisha Tolman and Aimee Bonham. Both of these talented women hold Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees–Tolman, in drawing from Utah […]
by Melissa Smolley I once heard a fascinating firsthand account of what it is like to experience a severe stroke — from a neuroscientist with a unique capacity to ingeniously articulate the event. In what she described as the most transcendent and terrifying experience of her life, she […]
In the basement below Broadway’s Frosty Darling, in a small gallery that opened quietly a few months ago, Travis Nikolai has installed a new exhibit of multi-media paintings entitled Hot Young Suicides: Audition for the 27 Club. Those who visited Artists of Utah’s 35 x 35 exhibit last […]
by Namon Bills On November 15th sculptor Brian Christensen will install five outdoor works on the Snow College campus in Ephraim. Entitled Reinterpretation, the show, says Christensen, “is based on reinterpreting and finding meaning in materials with a previous functional life and history. Each piece has elements that […]
by Josh Kanter On Thursday November 4th Brooklyn-based artist Chakaia Booker will be speaking at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The art talk is presented in conjunction with the annual acquisition dinner of the UMFA’s Young Benefactors on Friday November 5th. Booker’s “Discarded Memories” was the group’s […]
Tomorrow, Saturday October 23rd, Sean Diediker will be hosting a book release party for his new art book, Wax Onion Collaborative. The book is the culmination of the artist’s year-long initiative to harness the power of social media in the creation of his art. Using Facebook as his […]
From 2006 to 2009 Provo seemed like it might finally coalesce into a thriving art scene of its own,* with a number of non-profit and profit gallery spaces and a successful gallery stroll. One of the driving forces behind this movement was Raquel Smith Callis, who until last […]
by Kandace Steadman Paul Clowes, a highly talented Utah artist, is largely overlooked for his art and illustrations that punctuated publications during the 1930s and 40s. Born in Salt Lake City in July 1903, his artistic talent appeared early. He attended LDS High School, and later studied with […]
by Amanda Finlayson The governor of Utah has direct influence on the state of the arts in Utah, from the appointment of a Utah Arts Council director to state tourism initiatives and arts education funding. I recently met separately with both of Utah’s gubernatorial candidates, Gary Herbert and […]
Aaron Bushnell is a Bountiful artist with a growing reputation due to his expressive handling of paint. While his pastoral landscapes are an easier sell, Bushnell is drawn to more urban settings: freeway passes, refineries, stoplights. In the above interview Bushnell discusses why he searches out these places, […]
by Connie Deianni An interesting and alluring aspect of the work on display at the Bountiful/Davis Art Center’s LeConte Stewart Festival: A Teacher’s Teacher is the absence of people in the paintings by Stewart. Perhaps the well-known regionalist wanted the viewer to place themselves within his world, rumbling down the rutted […]
After a summer hiatus the Salt Lake City Film Center is once again screening a series of art-related films at the Salt Lake Art Center on the second Friday of the month. On October 8th you’ll have the chance to enter the strange, baroque world of Jack Smith, a revolutionary photographer, filmmaker […]
Economic strife requires many things from people: reconsideration of consumption, conservation of resources, redefining necessity, solidarity amongst individuals, and, perhaps surprisingly, a flourishing of the arts. Inspired by the dance hall marathons of the depression era, Dark Horse/Fallen Shadows hearkens appropriately back to a time where financially desperate times […]
An Addiction to Colored Pencils A video interview with Erica Houston Portrait painting is a notoriously difficult task, and not just because the ability to achieve a reasonable likeness with line and color is a craft that requires hours of dedication. Dealing with the emtoins and self-image of […]
Some artists embrace their background. Others flee it. Chad Crane does something in between. Though he is a rural Utah boy who grew up watching Westerns and surrounded by the cowboy life, Crane hates cowboy paintings. Which is precisely why he started to paint them. These aren’t the […]
