Back in March, Snow College Gallery Director Adam Larsen, inspired by Utah painter Brian Kershisnik’s monumentally personal re-conception of the traditional Roman Catholic story of Jesus Christ’s birth, invited more than twenty Utah artists of diverse religious backgrounds to create their own versions of the Nativity. Eventually eighteen […]
Most antiquarian bookstores have a spot set aside to display old maps and prints. These might have once been bound into books, but in any case they resonate with the booksellers’ appreciation for fine printing on paper. In Salt Lake, however, two excellent independent bookstores (which are increasingly […]
Back in March, Snow College Gallery Director Adam Larsen, inspired by Utah painter Brian Kershisnik’s monumentally personal re-conception of the traditional Roman Catholic story of Jesus Christ’s birth, invited more than twenty Utah artists of diverse religious backgrounds to create their own versions of the Nativity. Eventually eighteen were able […]
Since 15 Bytes comes out monthly, we tend to find ourselves talking about large scale and durable works of art, like architecture, sculpture, and painting. More ephemeral genres, like video and performance, can be hard or even impossible for readers to see and so are less satisfying to […]
Growing up in Utah, Meridith Pingree was surrounded by evidence of geometry contributing its structures to nature. Consider hexagons; these most efficiently packable of all shapes give form to living things across the spectrum, from the honeycombs of bees to the triangular shape of Sego Lilies. Nor was Pingree […]
Artist Profile of Salt Lake artist Joey Behrens.
Driving south on I-15 the other day, I was mildly amused to see a billboard promising passersby that a particular obstetric clinic provides “better birthdays.” The advertiser’s attempt at wit was really just the commonplace confusion of two terms, “birthday” and “birth day.” We rarely use birth day, […]
The best religious art of any time, like the important work in any subject matter, challenges its audience. The naked, physically powerful saints of Michelangelo shocked the Renaissance congregation, while the 1st to 2nd century transformation of Jesus from bearded elder teacher to youthful shepherd helped the early […]
Pity the poor art photographer. No other medium has been so thoroughly victimized by its own success. Invented by visual artists in the early 1800s as a shortcut to getting an image on the page, photography and its offspring—motion pictures, video, infrared and X-rays among others—have become the […]
Certain trade-offs seem unavoidable. Taking time off from work yields more free time, but what good is time without money? A new car rarely needs to see a mechanic, but instead of repair bills there’s a monthly payment to the bank. The encounter with art is an intimate […]
One of the more accessible yet intimate places to encounter new and innovative art is the adamantly casual, dependably irregular gallery that winds among the workspaces and between the furniture at Saltgrass Printmakers. On Friday, May 8, with live music during the Sugarhouse Gallery Stroll, and again Saturday afternoon, […]
Draw an X from corner to corner across Utah (something the Democratic Party did years ago) and right where the two diagonals meet, in the geographic center of the State, Sanpete County nestles in the valley that shares its name. Like Shangri-la, this long, narrow rift, stretching from […]
Ed Bateman — teacher, printmaker, and contributor to 15 Bytes — once said, “Every object exists in two worlds. One is the tangible that we know through our senses, and another exists only in our minds.” He might have added that we dress the things in our minds in […]
Matthew Choberka, a well-liked and influential painting professor at Weber State, can briefly be seen in overlapping exhibits in two of the most progressive galleries in Utah. His work could be called postmodernist, or painterly– environmentalist, but it seems to me that he partakes of a mainstream movement […]
When we say an artist puts her life into her art, we usually mean that important events become significant subject matter. But for Sandy Brunvand, the process is both subtler and more pervasive. Hearing her unravel the origins of her paintings and prints, whether in exceptionally accessible written statements […]
Michael Kimmelman, writing in the New York Times, had this to say about Andrew Wyeth, who died in his sleep earlier today (Friday, January 16th): “Andrew Wyeth, one of the most popular and also most lambasted artists in the history of American art, a reclusive linchpin in a […]
What decides our fates? Greek Sophists thought it was character: who I am would determine what I am. Astrologers argue that when we are determines who we are. Once upon a time, where we lived made many choices for us, but is that still true? With the coming […]
