{"id":104804,"date":"2026-08-04T10:43:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T17:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=104804"},"modified":"2026-08-17T08:32:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T15:32:51","slug":"recent-news-a-new-whale-for-slc-zachary-fabri-roxanne-gray-bianca-velasquez-indigenous-voice-artspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/recent-news-a-new-whale-for-slc-zachary-fabri-roxanne-gray-bianca-velasquez-indigenous-voice-artspace\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent News: A New Whale for SLC, Zachary Fabri, Roxanne Gray, Bianca Velasquez, Indigenous Voice, Artspace"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Whale Sculpture Gets New Mural This Fall<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jiyoun Lee-Lodge has been selected to paint a new mural on “Out of the Blue,” Stephen Kesler’s whale sculpture at the 900 South and 1100 East roundabout in the 9th & 9th neighborhood. The piece, titled Open Your Eyes, wraps the whale in a continuous 360-degree design of pink and blue gradients and wave patterns drawn from the Great Salt Lake and Utah’s skies\u2014one whale eye painted open, the other closed. Lee-Lodge, a Korean-born, Salt Lake City-based artist, was chosen from 35 applicants through a public RFQ process that included input from more than 1,700 residents via the city’s shapeSLC platform. Painting begins in late August and continues through September; the mural debuts at Whale Fest on October 3.<\/p>\n

Zachary Fabri Named 2026 Artist in Residence at Ogden Contemporary Arts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brooklyn-based artist Zachary Fabri will spend eight weeks in Ogden this fall as OCA’s 2026 Artist in Residence, from August 1 through October 4. Working in video, photography, sculpture, and drawing, Fabri will focus on salt extraction in Utah \u2014 photographing the pink waters near Stansbury Island and drawing material from Compass Minerals’ evaporation ponds for a series of new sculptures fabricated with local partners. He’s tracing a line from that extraction history to the trans-Atlantic slave trade and into Black culture today, filtered partly through his own Jamaican heritage. The residency includes free public programs \u2014 a lecture at Weber State’s Kimball Visual Arts Center, a movement workshop, and a Jamaican salt cod tasting \u2014 and closes with a live performance during the October 2 opening reception.<\/p>\n

Roxanne Gray Departs UMOCA for Faculty Role at UVU<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roxanne Gray, UMOCA’s Public Programs Strategist, is leaving the museum to become an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at Utah Valley University. During her time at UMOCA she built out the museum’s public programs, helping launch Flow Share Yoga, developing Tetrascapes with local performers and artists, and growing Fieldworks into one of the museum’s more ambitious offerings.<\/p>\n

MIXED MEDIA<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>8\/3 SLUGMAG: \u201cGrowth Requires Sacrifice:\u201d Bianca Velasquez\u2019s \u201cPrescribed Burn\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Tucked away between Reservoir Park and the University of Utah is the charming\u00a0Finch Lane Gallery<\/i>. Inside, you will find artwork displayed at every corner and beautiful pieces created by local Utah artists.<\/p>\n

With exhibitions rotating in and out of the gallery, several artists have graced\u00a0Finch Lane<\/i>\u2019s walls. This month,\u00a0Finch Lane<\/i>\u00a0is showcasing two amazing exhibitions, \u201cIRL,\u201d a collaboration between\u00a0Brenna Cooper,\u00a0Jeremiah Parkin\u00a0and\u00a0Lizzie Windsor, and \u201cPrescribed Burn\u201d by\u00a0Bianca Velasquez.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrescribed Burn\u201d is a brilliant and stunning exhibition. Velasquez first became inspired to work on the exhibition after watching\u00a0Fire Tender<\/i>\u00a0by\u00a0Roni Joe Draper, a film about the indigenous and matriarchal practice of cultural burns. She said the 16 pieces that make up \u201cPrescribed Burn\u201d explore the beauty that can emerge from destruction. \u201cWhat I thought was really beautiful was the metaphor within \u2026 comparing it to the human condition of sacrifice and destruction and catastrophe in order to prevent larger fires, per se,\u201d Velasquez says…<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n

8\/2 SLTRIB: This book from a Utah publishing house won the American Book Award<\/strong><\/p>\n

An anthology of Indigenous voices, published by Utah publishing house\u00a0Torrey House Press, has won a 2026\u00a0American Book Award.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond the Glittering World\u201d features 22 different pieces from Indigenous female, two-spirit and marginalized gender writers of varying ages \u2014 including Utah author\u00a0Stacie Shannon Denetsosie\u00a0\u2014 about their dreams and reimagined futures.<\/p>\n

Denetsosie, a member of the Navajo Nation, said the honor means a lot, especially right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a time where Indigenous ancestral lands are at constant risk of exploitation, extraction, and there\u2019s so much Indigenous erasure on a lot of different levels,\u201d she said. \u201cThe fact that they selected our book just proves to me that Indigenous futures matter more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>7\/29 SLUGMAG: Artspace: Bridging the Gap Between Art and Commuity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Downtown Salt Lake City is enriched is sprawling with a culture like nowhere else. The area has expanded tremendously in the past decade, growing with it an appreciation for history, community and of course, the arts. Just within the Old Greek Town neighborhood, Artspace<\/em>\u00a0is continuing their practice of bringing art and community together with the reconstruction of the residential and commercial space known as\u00a0Norbridge Court<\/em>. As part of Artspace\u2019s two-step renovation on their Norbridge Court, Craft Lake City invites artist Nancy Rivera to curate the Rarely Named exhibition.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1980,\u00a0Artspace<\/em>\u00a0began as a nonprofit dreamt up by artists who needed an affordable space to work and live. According to\u00a0Artspace<\/em>\u2019s Vice President\u00a0Cindy Franke<\/strong>, each building project mixes housing units and commercial spaces such as galleries, office spaces and retail. \u201cBeing a nonprofit, part of our mission is to demonstrate that we can build affordable housing sustainably,\u201d Franke says. \u201cSome are as small as 300-square feet so an individual artist can have a place to work.\u201d Today, the nonprofit operates out of seven buildings with 278 housing units and over 125,000 square feet of commercial space.<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whale Sculpture Gets New Mural This Fall Jiyoun Lee-Lodge has been selected to paint a new mural on “Out of the Blue,” Stephen Kesler’s whale sculpture at the 900 South and 1100 East roundabout in the 9th & 9th neighborhood. The piece, titled Open Your Eyes, wraps the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mixed_media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-10 23:46:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/open-your-eyes-announcement-6.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104804"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104959,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104804\/revisions\/104959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}