Ehren Clark studied art history at both the University of Utah and the University of Reading in the UK. For a decade he lived in Salt Lake City and worked as a professional writer until his untimely death in 2017.
Art speaks with many voices. Historically, it has furthered authoritative needs (both secular and religious), strengthened cultural ties, and even served as a mouthpiece for its own sake. Since the sixties, art’s activist voice has played an increasing role in the agenda of many artists, and today continues […]
The Bridge Academy of Art in Provo is set to open later this month. Founders and instructors Jeff Hein, Justin Taylor, Ben McPherson and Sean Diediker began the Academy, an experimental institution that proposes to endorse the “Classical Tradition without excluding the insight and advancements of the Modern […]
When we address the history of Modern Art, specifically its engagement with abstraction, it is helpful to discuss many points of view and examine different perspectives to encompass its wide body of meaning. Our understanding of Modernism is continually being opened to new interpretation, but a discussion […]
For those of us who love great art, who recognize the value of seminal art and artists and their impact on history, Utah Valley University’s current exhibit, the da Vinci Experience, gives insight to the potential, vicissitudes, and some very practical aims of historic art. The exhibition, now on […]
Utah Valley happily maintains a substantial cultural arts scene. On any given evening one might see a concert at the new Covey Center for the Arts, a play at one of the theaters at Brigham Young University’s Harris Fine Arts Center, a musical at the Scera Theater or […]
The Wrestling Scene in ‘As You Like It’; Daniel Maclise, 1855 The narrative is familiar to most. In the latter half of the 19th century, many French artists reacted to what they saw as an academic system irrelevant to their tumultuous society by forging ahead into new directions and […]
One might call Mike John Kelly a Post-neo-conceptualist-abstract-expressionist. Kelly’s multidimensional abstract canvases are explorations of his personal philosophy, learning and experience and are a road to self-discovery.At 33, the Salt Lake-based artist has had a long and profound journey, unraveling the inner-workings of himself and the inner-workings of […]
Peruse the aisles of any home décor shop and you’ll find an abundance of glassware — decorative, lovely objects meant to serve various purposes. Knowing I would be reviewing the work of Andrew Kosorok, glass artist, MFA student and teacher at Brigham Young University, I asked myself, […]
Wayne Thiebaud is an American icon who paints icons of America. He is famous for his lush and colorful ice creams, pies, cupcakes, a famous and charming Mickey Mouse and many other timeless American imagery. Thiebaud has always managed to capture the American establishment and its spirit, through […]
“Provo” by Justin Wheatley In most cases, traveling is a process of getting from point A to point B. The mind is elsewhere while the landscape is passed by unnoticed. Eight artists bore this in mind as they explored the Utah landscape while traveling US Highway 89 from […]
Many landscape paintings achieve greatness not for what they depict but for what they do not. Artists like Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Caspar David Friedrich and JMW Turner secured their places in art history for their ability to capture the sublime element in nature; that which lies […]
An interview with Ryan Neely If the past two months is any indication, it may be safe to say that Provo is undergoing an artistic renaissance. Like Salt Lake City and major communities across the country, Provo holds a monthly Gallery Stroll, an event that helps galvanize participation […]
White. Pure, innocent, cleansing, good, virtuous, virgin, whole, positive, light, new, reviving, awakening. White is the fullness of the spectrum of color, the element we do not see in the vicissitudes of the rainbow, in the vicissitudes of life. It is all encompassing yet invisible. At this time […]
Jason Metcalf With so many artists and so many mediums in today’s art world, to make it an artist needs to find big shoes and have feet large enough to fill them. A young artist is hard pressed to find his or her way through artistic channels to […]
“Pandora’s Box” by Andrew Junge, 2005, assemblage with neon, 11″ x 21″ x 9″ SF Recycled, the current exhibit in the Salt Lake Art Center’s Main Gallery, features artwork created out of materials from the solid-waste transfer and recycling center in San Francisco. Using old or found objects to create […]
Pioneer Family by Minerva Teichert In the canon of Utah art, few artists are more recognized and beloved than Minerva Teichert. Her works seem to cast a spell over those within and without the local art community as something like a sacred enigma. Not much is known about […]
When art addresses topics on a conceptual level, the concept becomes the subject of that art. In BYU Museum of Art’s exhibition Cliché and Collusion: Video Works by Grant Stevens, the subject is mass media and the many questions associated with mass media. This is a widely discussed topic today, a […]
