{"id":67156,"date":"2023-03-09T20:08:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T02:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=67156"},"modified":"2023-03-13T20:31:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T02:31:53","slug":"the-mature-eyes-of-youth-in-springvilles-all-school-art-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-mature-eyes-of-youth-in-springvilles-all-school-art-show\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mature Eyes of Youth in Springville’s All-School Art Show"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kelsi Kinder’s “It Was His Time To Go” (2022, acrylic on canvas) won Best of Show 2D at the Springville Museum of Art’s 51st Annual Utah All-School Art Show<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s 11 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, and the third bus parks at the Springville Museum of Art. A high school field trip to an art museum could be made up of expressionless bodies who boarded the bus because it means an excused absence in science or math class, but not these high schoolers. Students move from one exhibition room to another, as though on a scavenger hunt, scanning, looking \u2026 until finding \u2026 it\u2026 and then, taking a selfie. More than 300 works, and there it is! With only a third of submitted entries\u00a0 making the cut, the energy and excitement of this scavenger-like spectacle permeates Springville’s 51st Utah All-School Art Show<\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Established \u201cto honor the best high school artists in the state for their talent, originality, and enthusiasm,\u201d this exhibition takes place every year in Utah\u2019s first art museum, housed in a Spanish-colonial building dating back to 1927. This year\u2019s panel of judges, who examined nearly 1000 entries by juniors and seniors from high schools all over the state, were tasked with evaluating the best in technical skill, composition, design and concept development. Upon completion of the task, the judges asserted that while curating the exhibit, they felt \u201coverwhelmed by the quality of art work.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

An acrylic work by Kelsi Kinder, which received Best in Show for 2D work, exemplifies exactly what the judges sought. At first glance, Kinder\u2019s work appears to portray just a table with tools and random items strewn all over it. Because the composition is congested and busy, it\u2019s difficult to know where to look first \u2013 it’s not the typical still life. However, because it\u2019s not the typical still life, Kinder\u2019s painting invites a second look. Titled \u201cIt Was His Time to Go,\u201d it isn\u2019t about the things on the table, but, instead, is a memorialization of the tragic recent passing of Kinder\u2019s father. \u201cPeople kept telling me that it was his time to go,\u201d the artist says in her statement. But, she wonders, \u201cWhy would he leave unfinished projects if it was his time?\u201d Just an 11th grader at Utah Arts Academy in St. George, this young artist accomplishes what seasoned artists seek, a second look and consideration. Furthermore, she gracefully invites the second look in spite of the raw pain that accompanies the loss of a loved one.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n
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Tabatha Pettit, “Migration,” 2023 acrylic on canvas<\/p><\/div>\n

These high school students explore other serious themes, such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness; most impressive is the way they treat the popular themes of portraiture and identity, the themes most entreated at this year\u2019s exhibit. The artworks and artist statements tell stories, revealing layered explorations of these common, timeless themes with sub themes of relationship, heritage and the appreciation of little moments. Consequently, many of these young artists harmonize tradition to their own life experiences, maybe an attestation that our Utah students are waking up from the personal and social effects of 2020.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Tabatha Pettit illustrates this awakening in her acrylic painting, \u201cMigration.\u201d Using easy hues of blue, she depicts a sea of people moving together \u2014 no masks by the way \u2014 towards an unknown goal. In her statement, Pettit says, \u201cThis piece is meant to be a reestablishment of human connection \u2026 we may never be the same as a society \u2026 we have the possibilities that a new day holds.\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n
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Alessandra Meecham, “Moment in the Sun,” 2022, watercolor<\/p><\/div>\n

These possibilities show up in the most ordinary ways in many works, including West High senior Alessandra Meecham\u2019s portrait of a young man drinking from a straw.\u00a0 \u201cA Moment in the Sun\u201d uses layers of watercolor to celebrate an everyday moment \u2014 a cold drink on a hot day. Other mundane celebrations from these young artists include: a nap on a couch, an egg frying, a cuddle with a loved one, a house in the snow, and putting on a bicycle helmet. All cleverly interlaced into traditional art themes.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Perhaps deciding a high school art show over a downtown museum is like choosing chicken nuggets over chicken cordon bleu, but these Utah high school students are the future artists who we may someday stand in line to see. The conversations they introduce concerning life struggles, identity, and the banal, are beyond their years, with a simplicity uninhibited by an adult lens.\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

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51st Annual Utah All-State High School Art Show<\/em>, Springville Museum<\/a> of Art, Springville, through Mar. 24 <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 11 a.m. on a Wednesday morning, and the third bus parks at the Springville Museum of Art. A high school field trip to an art museum could be made up of expressionless bodies who boarded the bus because it means an excused absence in science or math […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1719,"featured_media":67157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-67156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-springville-museum-of-art"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/kinder.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 13:49:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67156","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\/1719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67160,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67156\/revisions\/67160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}