The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.
In honor of National Poetry Month, 15 Bytes editor Shawn Rossiter sits down with Utah poet Lance Larsen to discuss his newest collection, Making a Kingdom of It. In this intimate conversation, Larsen reads from the collection and reflects on the nature of poetry, memory, and emotion. Together, […]
They are part ceramic, part painting; filled with girls, in fancy dresses, climbing trees and mountains in exotic landscapes; and there are monsters, lots of monsters, threatening or doing battle with the young ladies. In one work, a girl hefts a giant sword to slice open the gut […]
Historically, ceramics have existed on the margins—labeled “craft” or “decorative”—but Katie Lee-Koven says they are increasingly recognized as essential to understanding 20th-century modernism and beyond. This is one reason she was drawn to The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA), where she has been director and chief […]
Brian Christensen has been spending a great deal of time—and craft—creating ceramic works that look like chunks of rock, the kind you might find littering the Utah landscape. He spends hours building this illusion: forming the mass, carving striations, staining the surface with mineral-like hues. And then, he […]
At the heart of one of the numerous ceramic exhibitions currently in Salt Lake City, as part of the NCECA conference, is a simple but profound premise: to see people too often ignored. “My art stems from my innate desire to make connection with my fellow human beings,” […]
Oh brother, he’s at it again. The prop impresario and sorcerer of the cinematic, David Brothers has dumped another load of art on the Salt Lake scene. You may remember “Jimax,” from 2023. Set in a narrow alley in Salt Lake City’s Central 9th neighborhood, it was a […]
What could be more sustainable than ceramics, right? Feldspar, the main component of clay, constitutes 60 percent of the earth’s crust. Water covers 70 percent of the earth’s surface (admittedly, most of it has salt). We’re not likely to run out of either anytime soon. Firing? Ok, that’s […]
When Shiya Zeng was invited by NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) to highlight her work for the Cultivating Community series, a striking absence became clear — the underrepresentation of queer ceramicists of color in Utah. This absence, Zeng observed, wasn’t due to a lack […]
New Sol LeWitt murals keep going up almost 20 years after his death. They’re new and yet old, some of the initial conceptions dating back to 1968. That’s when LeWitt first conceived of what are known as “wall drawings,” though they often take the form of massive wall […]
Deral Barton’s artistic journey spanned everything from Pop Art-inspired paintings to custom leather designs and hand-lettered signage. A fixture in Salt Lake City’s creative scene, Barton’s influence extended from the early days of Phillips Gallery to his counterculture leather shop that became a hub for artists and musicians. His versatile career blended fine art, fashion, and commercial design, leaving a lasting mark on Utah’s cultural landscape. As we remember Barton’s life and work, we reflect on his passion for creativity, craftsmanship, and community. Read more about Barton’s remarkable career and enduring influence.
The Southern Utah Museum of Art’s Salt Lines exhibition places the fragile state of Great Salt Lake at its center, not through advocacy or policy-driven rhetoric, but through poetic, immersive, and deeply sensory works that settle into the mind like salt into the seams of everyday life. If […]
Clay is elemental. Ancient. Intimately connected with humanity’s development. It is the stuff of creation myths, from Mesopotamian to Mesoamerican. Gods mold clay and animate it with the breath of life. Meaghan Gates’ sculptures seem to embrace this lineage, embodying a vitality that makes them feel like living, […]
Regular visitors to Phillips Gallery will be familiar with the work of Mark Knudsen, whose paintings of what he has called “the new West” have been a regular presence in its exhibitions for several years. Knudsen’s style—rooted in his years as a designer and illustrator for The Salt […]
The 2025 session of the Utah Legislature opened last week. While every legislative session holds significance for Utah’s art community (see Utah Cultural Alliance’s priorities for the current session here), none may have been as important as the session held 126 years ago, the state’s third, which created […]
Jann Haworth has not run out of women to celebrate, whether in Salt Lake City, Utah, or in Davos, Switzerland. Her “Celebration of Women” mural, initially put together digitally during the pandemic and printed on vinyl for outdoor display, has now been collaged into a massive mural at […]
Social pundits have lately lamented the loss of “third places,” spaces other than work and home where people can connect and experience a sense of community. Think churches, pubs and community centers. For Utahns, those spaces might be outdoors, at the ski lifts or along the trails. But […]
As we scan Utah’s artistic landscape, sometimes with apprehension and sometimes with hope—depending on whether we are noting the venues that are closing or those that are opening—we should remember to look for and note the many non-traditional venues supporting the arts in the state: libraries, cafes, bookstores. […]
We feel everything she needed to know she learned as a writer for 15 Bytes (from 2018 to 2019), but there’s a chance Brigham Young University Museum of Art’s new Curator of Religious Art picked up a thing or two in other places. Like in Heather Belnap’s Women […]
As far as we know, animals were humanity’s first muses. From Paleolithic cave paintings to medieval manuscripts, they have served as symbols, metaphors and companions, shaping how we see the world and ourselves. Today, as our relationship with the natural world becomes increasingly fraught, artists like Nine François […]
