Scotti Hill is a lawyer, art critic, and curator based in Salt Lake City. She has contributed to various publications and serves as an adjunct professor of art history at Westminster College. She has a Master's Degree in art history from the University of Utah.
Though people travel from around the globe to visit Robert Smithson’s monumental Spiral Jetty, located on the northeastern shore of Great Salt Lake, to this day some Utahns have no idea that one of the 20th century’s most iconic artworks exists in their own backyard. One who does is […]
“Dinner Napkin No 1” Things were going swimmingly in the Garden of Eden before a sinister serpent offered Eve, Earth’s first woman, an apple. Though such a partaking was expressly off limits, Eve simply couldn’t resist the seduction of the deliciously bright and crisp fruit. Letting her selfish […]
Since completing his MFA at Yale in 2014, Michael Ryan Handley has been busy. A native Utahn, he now operates out of studios in Philadelphia and New York. His artistic processes are complex and experimental, combining a western fascination with the land with a typically eastern penchant for […]
Salt Lake City artist Bret Hanson. Photo by Simon Blundell. Bret Hanson has been playing guitar since he was 16. “At one point, I wanted to start using a slide guitar but I didn’t want to buy one because it was so expensive,” he says. “I thought to […]
“In Arcadia” by Madeline Rupard, acrylic on panel, 2017 In ancient Greek mythology, Arcas, the son of Zeus and Callisto, ruled over Arcadia, a utopian paradise that later housed the god Pan. Arcadia eventually eclipsed its namesake to become a symbol for a mythical and unblemished landscape, a […]
Between Force and Fragility Lydia Okumura and the gendered nuances of Minimalist sculpture by Scotti Hill When writing about sculpture, critics often use inadvertently masculine vernacular, expending such terms as “dominant” or “forceful” in describing a work’s construction and effect. While feminist scholars are right to point out […]
Long ago relegated to the domestic sphere, embroidery is often seen as a decidedly feminine form of labor. Which is why, taking a renewed interest in practices such as textile work and ceramics, feminist art sought to question society’s often demeaning classifications of such mediums as ”women’s work.“ […]
“Everyone leaves marks, both physically and emotionally,” says Lewis Crawford. The artist, who is featured in a group show now up at Finch Lane, uses this philosophy to guide a conceptually fluid assortment of visual experiments, or “constructs.” Crawford’s works are simultaneously philosophical and simple—emphasizing the primal role […]
The world is awash with proverbial sayings about beauty — it’s in the eye of the beholder or only skin deep. Such notions seem at odds, however, with our society’s prescription for a monolithic kind of beauty, a preoccupation for which women across the generational spectrum have fallen […]
Printmaking exists as one of art’s most revered mediums. Its influence is impossible to overstate, as early practitioners were responsible for disseminating the written word and visual illustration to countless individuals for whom such access was previously limited. In the modern era, fewer artists aspire to be […]
Overshadowed and undervalued by the history of Caucasian colonizers, the diverse tapestry of America’s indigenous peoples is frequently molded together to form a digestible monolithic narrative. An increasingly urgent call to arms regarding minority representation in art accompanied the civil rights movements of the 1960s and, while significant […]
Shocking. Profane. Beautiful. Inspiring. These are but a few of the vast and diverse adjectives used to describe contemporary art. As a figural painter and photographer, Lindsay Frei has intentionally blurred the boundaries of such classifications, creating work that is both skillful and intelligent. An undeniable talent marks […]
Utah houses some of the world’s most stunning geological wonders and Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art’s newest exhibition, Et in Utah Ego, acknowledges and challenges these markers of Utah’s local identity. The show, curated by Mestizo’s director Renato Olmedo-González, presents over 100 small photographs taken from locations across […]
Art maintains a remarkable ability to change and augment our perceptions of different cultures and traditions. As a title, “Weaving the Unexpected” anticipates the exhibition’s capacity for redefining what is typically known about this subject. The works contained in this show present remarkable craftsmanship and skill in their own right, made even more impressive when given the added layer of modernity…
In a technologically vibrant world, it is increasingly difficult to separate ourselves from our digital appendages, as screens, wires and gadgets serve as tangible reminders of the more complicated, invisible networks that surround us. History demonstrates that episodes of great progress like ours are met with a […]
Culture has a powerful ability to shape many aspects of personal identity including political, social and familial interactions. Gender also plays a powerful role in this equation. Much has been made about how cultures structure male and female roles, but what happens when this culture is transplanted to […]
To consider oneself an American is to acknowledge an inherent lack of cultural homogeny. The nation is comprised of countless national ancestries, cultures, religions and customs. So much so that the traditional and hopeful “melting pot” metaphor has given way to the more realistic “tossed salad.” The Utah […]
The Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah is the recipient of a traveling exhibition composed of over 130 drawings, sculptures, collages, photographs and original artworks by the world famous husband and wife artistic team Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Initially organized by the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa, […]
For her inaugural project as associate curator at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), Rebecca Maksym envisioned an exhibition that sheds light on a nationality of immigrants not commonly referenced in American migrational history. Rather than a strictly historical chronology, Maksym preferred to think about migration in […]
