Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
by Christine Baczek America’s West is full of lonely roads and desolate countryside where a paper map and spare tire are more important than a cell phone. These roads set the stage for Passing Through, in which author and photojournalist Richard Menzies recounts the “existential wonderland of a […]
To start out 2016 we checked in with some Utah artists to see what they are up to in the New Year. We’ll be running these short features throughout the month. When you think “Connie Borup” you think “nature” and often “trees,” though that theme has morphed in […]
“Very different,” “unique,” “colorful” – all are words Michael Beasley hears when he shows his three-dimensional masks to people. The artist has been making the intricately patterned masks, reminiscent of Native American or Mexican folk art, for nearly five years but had never tried to sell them until […]
To start out 2016 we checked in with some Utah artists to see what they are up to in the New Year. We’ll be running these short features throughout the month. Marian Dunn tells us: “Painting has been in my blood for about 80 years,” and we know […]
A massive and meaningful mural created and painted by University of Utah Professor V. Kim Martinez and 11 of her art students was unveiled Dec. 11 at Esperanza Elementary in West Valley City. The 1,500-square-foot work, titled “Lenguaje de Esperanza” or “Language of Hope,” incorporates figures from diverse […]
What does an art collector do when she runs out of wall space? She collects art jewelry. There’s no need for wall space and you can show off pieces of your collection on the go. If this is the least bit appealing, be sure to visit the J-GO […]
Efflorescent Interference, Sarina Villareal’s current exhibit at the Gallery at Library Square, explores the fine balance between the control one has over one’s life and those things out of one’s control, between what can be gained and what can be lost by life in the world. With paintings […]
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 […]
One of the Old World’s grand definitions of art—that art is craft in the service of inspiration—seemingly went out of service when fashionable insistence by artists on absolute creative freedom trumped the audience’s taste for demonstrations of skill. But the pendulum continues to swing, and ironically enough, new, […]
In response to the famed “Four Freedoms” speech given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January, 1941, American painter Norman Rockwell created an iconic series of paintings by the same name (finished in 1943). The first painting, entitled Freedom of Speech, features a man engaged in offering a […]
This summer the Kimball Art Center (KAC) abandoned its longtime location in Old Town Park City, a decision resulting from a dispute with city leaders about what was architecturally appropriate for the resort town’s Main Street and the Kimball’s long-term plans for a new permanent home. KAC has […]
Longtime followers of UMOCA, going back to the days when it was called the Salt Lake Art Center, have known to check out the room all but hidden in the back, at the northeast corner of the large, downstairs gallery. Here gems often can be found: small collections […]
“The two local girls from Bella Muse” — as Ogden artists Shanna Kunz and Elizabeth Robbins describe themselves — are taking their art uptown, to the Eccles Community Art Center’s main gallery, for the month of December. A reception for the artists is Friday, December 4. Kunz, who […]
Tyrone Davies’ In Camera comprises more than a dozen television sets arranged in deliberate, symmetrical spatial compositions around an altar-like pair that much of the time places an image of religious meditation in close proximity to a giant sports arena. Symbolism noted. All the sets are playing, a […]
Shelley, given like all Romantic poets to overstatement, wrote that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Two centuries later, Auden replied that “poetry makes nothing happen.” Presuming that what they said of poetry can stand for all of art, their argument addresses the essential question […]
The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art has become one of Salt Lake City’s most reliable venues for the art of our time, and its ambitious program, combined with the number and variety of its galleries, can challenge the capacity of the local art press. As this is being […]
Modern West Fine Art is showing a new collection of work from photographer Michael Coles and paintings by Renaissance man, Nathan Florence, who’s certainly no stranger to the pages of 15 Bytes. The artists’ work, while stylistically different, complements each other well and creates an insightful window into […]
Among my favorite qualities in art, two perennial activities stand out. One is drawing, an essential human activity that too often goes entirely under-appreciated, thought of as nothing more than the practiced trick of outlining visible forms. The fact that computers, with their mind-boggling computational powers, cannot recognize […]
On a wall edging a Bogotá, Colombia, street, music and theater posters vie with fight cards and bullfight notices pasted cheek-by-jowl to a rough, stucco wall. Over them are stenciled images of balaclava-clad guerrillas and the scrawled brigade name, M19, alternating with random graffiti, the surface peeling open […]
