Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
‘“Where are my people?” the mountains cry out.’ This line from a young Diné (Navajo) poet sets the tone for an exhibition curated by Dr. James Swensen, Melanie Allred, and Meagan Anderson. Featuring visual art, poetry, and ephemera produced by students of the Intermountain Indian School, the display […]
“Peonies VII,” etching by Jenni Christensen, photo by John Snyder “I have always loved flowers and the garden. The variation is endless.” – Jenni Christensen Although in the high desert of the Great Basin, you could mistake a small patch of Pleasant Grove, Utah, for a flower-filled backyard […]
Disposable plasticware is advertised as a convenient alternative to washing dishes, but are disposables really more convenient? With plastics clogging the ocean, factory waste, climate change, and multi-billion dollar initiatives needed to pull the earth back from the brink, we are being killed by disposables. However, convenience has […]
James Swensen has been awarded this year’s 15 Bytes Book Award in the Art Book category for his scholarly publication In a Rugged Land: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three Mormon Towns Collaboration, 1953-1954, published by University of Utah Press. “Swensen’s book is a fascinating and detailed look […]
Salt Lake City artist Pilar Pobil Pobil died Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, Kathryn Lindquist, vice president of the Pilar Pobil Legacy Foundation, announced. She was 98. This article, entitled “Creating a Home for Art,” was written in 2019 when Pobil was named one of Utah’s Most Influential Artists […]
The history of photography is bound up in chemical and technical overhauls, and when artists combine and tweak these photographic processes, new levels of expression emerge. Contemporary photographers Christine Baczek and David Hyams, co-founders of Luminaria in Salt Lake City, are reviving alternative photographic agents and playing with […]
Utah will be host to at least four major quilt shows in 2019. Is this the best one? Possibly. Technically, it’s not a quilt show. Things That Matter is a “fiber art” exhibition. With one or two exceptions, however, these works are quilts, ones that, as the show’s […]
“Use of color” is an expression over-abundantly used, often because someone doesn’t know what to say about art, or artists: as an artist, you are congratulated on “your use of color” when, of course, you usually have no choice. Color’s there, it happens; you might have chosen the […]
Major transitions often feel overwhelming, like a wave of dislocation that renders one temporarily paralyzed. Spatial transitions are among the most disarming, engendering unique challenges to the foundation of one’s personal, social and often cultural identity. This idea of “belonging” or existing as an “outsider” has been a […]
Billy Hensler has created murals for a variety of clients: municipalities, hospitals, dentist offices, private individuals. And the subject and style can change with each client, from twinkly, light-filled landscapes ala Thomas Kinkaide to dark, chiaroscuro fantasy villains. Wildlife is a recurring motif in many of his murals. […]
AM Source 2285 S. Main Street South Salt Lake What will South Salt Lake’s downtown area look like in two decades? Who knows. As Evan Jed Memmott’s mural reminds us, “Nothing Lasts.” Right now, however, the area is going through a revival, with hundreds of new residences popping […]
Shades Brewing 154 W. Utopia South Salt Lake He’s got a BS in Interpersonal Communications from the University of Utah, an MFA in Drawing & Painting from Utah State University, and a KA (kick ass) from the streets. Raise a glass to Chuck Landvatter’s for his latest mural, completed for […]
“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” — Charles Horton Cooley How does a former sugar-cane company accountant from Brazil become an expressionist painter in Orem, Utah? Well, not without much difficulty. The story of Josie Bell — this year’s featured artist […]
Gustin Hydraulics 151 W. Commonwealth Ave. South Salt Lake Life got you down? Feeling under pressure? Ann Chen’s mural on the face of this high-pressure hydraulics shop may be just the message you need — “Change Starts With You.” The mural was completed as part of South Salt […]
Life magazine published “Three Mormon Towns” on September 6, 1954. Today, the photo-essay by Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams — two of the best-known photographers in the medium’s history — is largely unknown. James Swensen’s new book, In a Rugged Land: Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, and the Three […]
We are fascinated by nature. We study it, copy it, theorize about it, and long for it. We also sometimes dislike it. We get allergies and curse the trees or step on a sharp thorn and resent the bush in our path. Nature excites us, but we are […]
These paintings should not be as good as they are: with their muted palette, square format and generally flat lighting, they should be boring. But are not. Patricia Kimball has never been a flashy painter, one who indulges in bright colors and virtuoso effects in her figure paintings […]
David Ericson Fine Art is a gallery’s gallery: old, jumbled, cozy. In this 1883 building, two chairs have been carefully set across from each other in front of the small fireplace, with its old ornamental insert, the solid, dull brass looking like an ancient shield against winter. There’s […]
Museum collection catalogs provide one entrée into a museum’s collections and serve as a resource to highlight important works; they also serve to entice readers to visit the museum to experience art firsthand. With a catalog as beautifully produced as Collecting on the Edge: The Nora Eccles Harrison […]
