Utah Visual Arts articles published in 15 Bytes, arranged by category.
Susan Klinker’s assemblage, variously titled “Scarab Piece” or “Desert Transformation,” recounts what she describes as her “transformative experience during a desert meditation” while she was “on a three-day prayer retreat at Christ in the Desert Monastery, Abiquiu, New Mexico.” The work initially seems to resemble a rugged, weathered […]
Hikmet Sidney Loe left in the summer of 2021. Left Utah, that is. Moved her residence 385 miles south to Nevada, where she now teaches in the art history department at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Left Salt Lake City, where she had lived for decades, working […]
Hospitals are bustling busy places where people move quickly with purpose, where missteps can divide life and death, and where hurting people spend countless hours waiting. The team of chaplains at the University of Utah hospital, along with architects, designers, and artists, have created a space of respite […]
Beginning 2023, sculptor Nathan Brimhall is very excited about a commissioned piece he’s working on for a private residence in the Colony in Park City. “It will be the largest work I’ve done at between 20-24 feet tall,” he says. The idea dates back to 2017. “It is […]
As 2023 begins, Susan Makov is anticipating the publication of poet Gary Stein’s Getting to Heaven (and Other Miracles). Makov’s work, based on images the poets sent as source material, graces the cover. The book cover was just part of a busy 2022 for the retired professor. She […]
Personal identity is one of the most influential issues of the day, one with its essence to be found in memory. Recalling not only what has happened, but what we felt like then is how we create a durable sense of who we are. In the 21st century […]
A friend suggested, in jest, that I spend a few years editing down the thousands of entries in the new Dictionary of Utah Fine Artists to a more manageable Dictionary of Utah Fine Artists Who Matter. They all matter, of course. Not being an artist himself, my friend […]
Two bowls are set on a small wooden end table. The bowl on the right reads, “Take one of these cards if you do NOT have OCD.” The bowl on the left reads, “Take one of these cards if you DO have OCD.” Each is filled with cards […]
Every genre of art comes, if not with rules exactly, then with expectations. Religious images are not permitted to be funny, while landscapes are expected to focus on land rather than the people living on it. Judging from endless corridors lined with countless monotonous examples, portraits must be […]
On a bookshelf a few feet from where I’m writing this sits a volume that claims to contain “the complete paintings of Vincent van Gogh”—(it should say “surviving,” his mother having burned half his work when she became discouraged). It’s a large and rather heavy book. Nearby, a […]
In “Reflections on Lake Powell,” printmaker Rob Chipman could be said to have reversed a common but popular natural sight. Beneath a classic desert sky of clouds too ephemeral to ever produce rain, a red rock landscape is doubled by its reflection on the reservoir’s surface. Normally, a […]
It’s a well-known fact that while comedy doesn’t always produce outright laughter, it does require a happy ending. So if the paintings of Lucky Tuck, now on view upstairs in the Utah State Capitol, are comedies — some of them are deliberately funny — can they be said […]
Brigham Young was a visionary and entrepreneur who crossed mountains and found dreams on the other side. His most celebrated find is well known, but not everyone knows about what followed: the opening of the hidden valley that came to be known as Sanpete County. Located at the […]
A new space in Sugar House (2006 S 900 East) aims to serve as a unique cultural hub in Salt Lake City. The opening nights for 2006: Space Oddity, Friday, Dec. 9 and Saturday, Dec. 10, will include live music by local indie bands, as well as an […]
One word can make the case. For example, as a direction, west is an abstraction — that is, a thought or idea with noconcrete, physical presence. As a place, on the other hand, “the West” is one of the more common and evocative locations in space: one which […]
Every time I see an acrylic print by Kate Jarvik Birch, I wonder why I haven’t already bought a triptych for my office. Her still lifes are eye-popping like old magazine illustrations. They’re often food-based and always turn up my lips.
I’ve been thinking about Colour Maisch’s porcelain pieces ever since I saw them at Current Work in the fall. Not sure why. Maybe because they remind me of a philosopher’s stone (as in the Chinese Gongshi, not as in Harry Potter). I just think I’d like to look at them for a long while. Sculpture isn’t cheap, though (Go big or go home, is how I’m feeling this year), and I don’t really hang with a wealthy crowd, so, here’s what I’m thinking: she’s got a show going up at the Kimball In Park City on December 9. Hang out in their parking lot next week and while she’s loading the pieces in and out …
Since losing a print in Santa Fe seven years ago (a single print by a Russian artist; it disappeared after being left at the foot of a bench, across from an art museum), I always feel a pang of pleasure/sadness/delight when I see a framed print on any wall. There it is, I think, made it to its destination. Where it should be.
If you go to SaltGrass Printmakers (412 South 700 West), you can find one.
