Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
UN.RU.LY Adjective disorderly and disruptive, and not amenable to discipline or control. If this definition brings your mind to the rebellious nature of the arts, your thinking is in line with the owners of one of the latest additions to Salt Lake City’s monthly Gallery Stroll. While it […]
Against a two-storey, rainbow colored-background, the profile of a Native American in a feathered headdress stares northward. To the right is the text of a Ute prayer: Earth teach me to remember kindness as dry fields weep with rain. The mural, located on AMI Roofing’s south wall, was […]
There are three levels at work in Bea Hurd’s It Was Their Third Cup of Coffee. At the bottom is physiology: the human body and the human brain, each in competition for the same resources. It’s well known that while the brain makes up only 2% of body […]
Just when I think I understand Ed Bateman’s images he throws a curve and I have to start all over.
You think it’s an original 19th-century studio portrait framed on a photographer’s carte de visite, a nod to the ancestors. Then you look closer and something is very wrong. You trusted the patina, the formality, the tint, the truth that we all assume photographs convey. But you are deceived: The child version of great grandmother Hedy (or is it great-grandfather Fred?) is posed next to a robot dog. It almost seems a travesty but you can’t stop looking at the image. What can you trust?
In this identity-conscious age, people have found many new ways to identify themselves. You may find yourself in all sorts of cultural activities. Each of the seven artists participating in Modern West Fine Arts’ current exploration of the theme of identity, titled You May Find Yourself, has a […]
Emily Hawkins is rummaging around the flat files at Salt Lake City’s Saltgrass Printmakers. She’s looking for sheets of Mylar. “That’s too thick,” Saltgrass director Stefanie Dykes tells her, though she’s not quite sure what Hawkins is looking for. “We use that one for printing,” she says when […]
Tucked up against the mountains at the south end of Utah Valley with a view of Utah Lake to the northwest, Woodland Hills is a quiet, wooded community with large lots and a secluded feel. And the town of just 1500 has a high concentration of artists, six […]
Author, master printer, multimedia artist and Weber State professor, Susan Makov was among the first artists to sound a warning about the plight of the natural environment, depicting things in her prints like birds beset by the trashy artifacts of human overpopulation. It fact, she arrived so early […]
Nothing’s more full of promise than a prop room in a theater, and that’s what this corner of the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art feels like, filled with Mitsu Salmon’s paintings on raw muslin. All six of Salmon’s big paintings (approximately 4 x 5 feet) are happy explosions […]
Welcome, my cool cats and kittens, to the . . . Circus of Death After navigating the Ramp of Doom, you’ll be faced with the Beams of Peril! Survive that and be tested by the Balancing Ball of Fright! Lucky enough to live through that? Well, try making […]
Think globally, act locally. That’s Carol Sogard. From Detroit, Sogard has been a professor of graphic design at the University of Utah for more than two decades. Her work as a designer, educator and community-engaged artist focuses on the type of contemporary issues that affect the entire globe: […]
Ya La’ford’s artistic practices are as multifaceted as her lived experience, spawning abstract painting, public art, video, sculpture and installation. The child of Jamaican immigrants, La’ford exudes the sort of palpable energy derived from a life of incredible ambition and achievement. While her methods are varied, her work […]
For several years Paul Crow’s art was about the outside world. The Weber State University professor’s work was frequently lens-based, passing through and observing the world, whether it be urban, ex-urban or rural. “Before, during and for a several years after art graduate school [MFA, University of Southern […]
It was 2020 and the pandemic was raging. Kristina Lenzi was teaching an online drawing class through Weber State University. The students were confined to their rooms and had been assigned an art kit that lent itself to mixed-media drawing: black and white acrylic paint, brushes, charcoal pencils, […]
In a feature we are introducing this month called Variant of Concern, we ask a Utah artist about a body of work that falls outside their normal practice. For Laura Ekerson’s upcoming exhibit at Writ and Vision, you can expect to be wowed by an appropriately Spring […]
With an unknown number works of art accepted, the Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art — far and away the exemplary annual show, at the definitive repository of homegrown Utah art and artists — defies imagination. Because it occupies almost the entire main floor, flowing from […]
A beautiful wooden boat sits on clear, deep, blue water against a background of rugged mountains. The vibrant, blue sky is only interrupted by fluffy rolling clouds and the boat’s colorful but simple design is reflected in the water. At the bottom of the boat is a turquoise […]
“Nephi taught that by clinging to the word of God we would be able to avoid temptation and not lose our way in darkness” – Joseph B. Wirthlin “The truth you believe in and cling to makes you unable to hear anything new.” – Pema Chodron These two […]
Renato Olmedo-González is a proud queer immigrant who is passionate about the arts and social change. Born and raised in Guadalajara, México, Renato came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant when he was 15 years old. While still a student at the University of Utah, he […]
