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Articles by Scotti Hill
Mourn the Dead, Fight for the Living: How Should Salt Lake City's Fleet Block Murals Be Commemorated?
The artists and families tied to soon-to-be-demolished Salt Lake City murals depicting people slain by police diverge on how best to preserve their legacy. In the pivotal days and weeks after George Floyd’s May 2020 murder, artists mobilized to erect countless visual reminders of the marinating national trauma unfolding around them.
Andrew Alba’s New Works at Material Expose the Pain We Inherit
In a world replete with ecological catastrophe and political turmoil, the customarily inward Andrew Alba channels calamities into catharsis for his exhibition of new works at Material. Andrew Alba: Inheritance March 1–April 19, 2024 Material, Salt Lake City On a pleasant day at the reservoir with his young daughter, artist Andrew Alba recalls with clarity his reaction to the startlingly low water levels.
How Commemorations to the Disenfranchised Have Forced a Reckoning with Utah’s History and Present
The narratives of the many racial and ethnic minorities whose experiences have indelibly shaped both Utah and American history deserve recognition and reckoning. This article is part of our Living Histories series, a continuation of the ideas explored in Southwest Contemporary Vol. 9.
Shaping Landscapes: 150 Years of Photography in Utah
Shaping Landscapes illuminates the state’s history, using photography as a platform for exploring technology, identity, and activism. Shaping Landscapes: 150 Years of Photography in Utah September 16, 2023–March 3, 2024 Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City The sprawling vistas of Ansel Adams were to photography what Thomas Moran was to the generation of landscape painters before him, each codifying the sublimity associated with the region.
Work in Progress with Stephanie Leitch
Salt Lake City-based Stephanie Leitch, known for her labor-intensive and mesmerizing installations, continues honing her craft in recent exhibitions that comment on life’s murky truths. Staring down the length of a long table arranged with seemingly infinite dots, one’s line of sight can detect a partition between wires that hold plastic disks hovering above the table. The effect creates a dizzying visual mirage that entices and dislodges the sense of self.
Russel Albert Daniels Exposes Native Enslavement and Genocide in the Southwest
Russel Albert Daniels posits the photojournalist’s family history as a bridge to larger investigations into Indigenous histories and the legacy of colonial violence and displacement in the American Southwest. SALT LAKE CITY—Russel Albert Daniels recalls hearing stories about his ancestor Rose from an early age.
A Greater Utah Surveys the Artistic Output of an Entire State
While many of the figures in UMOCA’s A Greater Utah are familiar, the ambitious scope of the project allows for new perspectives outside of the state’s metropolitan center. A Greater Utah July 28, 2023-January 6, 2024 Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City Whereas the Utah Museum of Fine Arts serves as the state’s preeminent collecting institution, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art lends credibility to the state’s vibrant artistic output.
Lizz Denneau
Tucson-based artist Lizz Denneau’s sumptuous and extravagant creations force us to reckon with their simultaneous beauty and horror. Lizz Denneau relishes those minute details that make viewers savor a work of art. From sculptures adorned with delicate, pearl-like beads to sprawling and intricately detailed embroidery that tells a story on its surface, her work invites us to ruminate on the craft and symbolism contained in infinite detail.
Rosemary Meza-DesPlas
Rosemary Meza-DesPlas’s varied and multi-faceted work, deeply rooted in the power of the human figure, addresses feminism, cultural identity, and contemporary politics. Contemporary art critics, it seems, are continually pronouncing the triumphant “return” of figural art. While they often posit the corporeal as a mere allusion to a larger thematic, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas’s work draws its centrifugal force from the figure, reading at once modern and timeless.
Kheng Lim and Colour Maisch Team Up at Bountiful Davis Art Center
Although the thematic connection feels strained, the pairing of works by Kheng Lim and Colour Maisch creates a visually rich and compelling exhibition that invites us to relish process and material. Kheng Lim and Colour Maisch: Inexorable Truth July 28-September 9, 2023 Bountiful Davis Art Center, Bountiful, Utah An artist’s chosen medium reveals much about their artistic philosophy and provides tantalizing clues about the labor and dedication to their chosen craft.
Work in Progress with Hayley Labrum Morrison
Hayley Labrum Morrison’s eerily provocative work invites viewers to contemplate the formation of identity, gender, and body politics within über-religious patriarchal systems. Hayley Labrum Morrison grew up in Utah as a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After graduating with her BFA in studio art from Brigham Young University in 2008, she left Utah for Chicago and then Australia before landing in Austin, Texas, where she’s been for the past eight years.
Eric J. García’s Latest Community Mural and Video Game Allow Players to Interact with Colonial “Aliens”
Ogden Contemporary Arts’s second artist in residence Eric J. García invites us to scrutinize the principles upon which American history and identity are based in a dazzling and multifaceted artistic project. OGDEN, UT—Ogden’s history as a railroad town sets it apart from the predominantly white settlements promulgated by Mormon pioneers, and continues to be one of the few Utah cities known for its ethnic diversity. It’s here that New Mexico-based artist Eric J.
Curator Profile: Jessica Kinsey at Southern Utah Museum of Art
Jessica Kinsey heads a small but growing team at the Southern Utah Museum of Art, a Cedar City institution that aims to replace culturally insular stereotypes with a community focus. The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, located on the University of Oklahoma campus, boasts a 40,000-square-foot exhibition space and a storied global art collection.
Ahní Rocheleau: 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now 2023
Ahní Rocheleau is a Santa Fe-based artist whose interdisciplinary work collapses the distance between humans and nature, exhibiting a deep care for the environment that bridges art and activism. Santa Fe | ahnirocheleau.com | @ahnirocheleau | @become_climate_consciousness Ahní Rocheleau’s work uses tactile materials to challenge the notion of environment as decidedly separate from human existence.
Karma Henry: 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now 2023
Karma Henry is a Paiute, Italian, and Portuguese artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose acrylic paintings consider the landscape as site for both the literal and personal embodiment of place. Santa Fe | karmahenry.com | @karmasbrain Karma Henry is a Paiute, Italian, and Portuguese artist whose acrylic paintings consider the landscape as site for both the literal and personal embodiment of place.
Benjamin Winans: 12 New Mexico Artists to Know Now 2023
Albuquerque-based Benjamin Winans’s sculptural works contend with the impact of Christian nationalism within national memory and the artist’s own lived experience. Albuquerque | benjaminwinans.com | @benwinans Benjamin Winans takes an interdisciplinary approach to explore both the personal and the historical implications of his Southern upbringing.
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge Tackles the Bogeyman of Loneliness in Waterman
Jiyoun Lee-Lodge of Salt Lake City grapples with themes of isolation and belonging—in comic book-style works influenced by Korean folk art—in her ongoing Waterman series. SALT LAKE CITY—Invariably, each of us has encountered the acute vulnerability accompanying loss, a life transition, or perhaps self-doubt. One’s identity may falter when pulled apart from the comforts of routine and home, rendering us a stranger among our fellow humans.
The Gallery as Slaughterhouse: Tamara Kostianovsky’s Mesmerizing Flesh at Ogden Contemporary Art
Mesmerizing Flesh, Tamara Kostianovsky’s exhibition of textile sculptures, encapsulates a compelling, if harrowing contradiction between industrial violence and the beauty of corporeal and organic forms.
“Great” Salt Lake No More: How Utah’s Worsening Drought is Inspiring Artistic Reflection and Activism
The depletion of Utah’s Great Salt Lake is a symbol of the state’s worsening water crisis and has, throughout the past few years, inspired a diverse array of artistic responses. For the estimated forty million inhabitants who rely on the Colorado River, the West’s worsening drought is an existential threat.
Between Life and Land: Material at the Kimball Art Center, Park City
Between Life and Land: Material at Kimball Art Center stuns not by virtue of its star artists, but from those that highlight the wonder and horror of our natural world. Between Life and Land: Material December 9, 2022–April 9, 2023 Kimball Art Center, Park City The first of a three-part series of exhibitions, Between Life and Land: Material showcases ten artists whose works grapple with a subject at once ubiquitous and integral—land.
What Does It Mean to Be a Latina/x Artist?
SALT LAKE CITY — In a small but impactful exhibition at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA), independent curator María del Mar González-González brings together the work of four stylistically divergent Latina/x artists. Beyond the Margins: An Exploration of Latina Art and Identity succeeds in two critical respects. First, it demonstrates the simple fact that not all Latine artists make work exclusively about their own ethnic experience.
Utah’s New State Flag, To the Disappointment of Some, Won’t Depict the State Fish Wielding the State Firearm
During the Utah state and Salt Lake City flag competitions, residents fall in love with Grant Miller’s dark horse design that’s heavy on clowning state symbols and imagery. SALT LAKE CITY—As Utah’s campaign to select a new state flag nears completion, vexillologists, along with amateur flag artists and state lawmakers, are having a moment. In recent years, local politicians have initiated two distinct campaigns to refresh the Salt Lake City flag and the Utah state flag.
Fate of Utah's Outsider Art Site The Christian School Remains In Flux
Salt Lake City’s Christian School, the brainchild of late artist Ralphael Plescia, is in limbo as an arts organization’s preservation efforts are hampered by the recent sale of the property. SALT LAKE CITY—Along an inconspicuous stretch of Salt Lake City’s State Street exists a most unusual building, artist Ralphael Plescia’s Christian School.
What Rights Do Artists Have When Their Work is Destroyed?
SALT LAKE CITY — Once located on the edifice of the Catholic Community Services (CSS) building in downtown Salt Lake City, artist Ruby Chacon’s sprawling and colorful mural was a recognized site, a symbol of remembrance and faith. The mural, entitled “Hope and Determination” (2007), depicts the Virgin Mary at the center of the composition, flanked by figures whose bodies curve inward to form a circular enclosure.
The Horror and Banality of American Racism
SALT LAKE CITY — In the realm of postmodern art fare, video art can be conceptually difficult to comprehend. At once keenly familiar in a world replete with television and film, it is perhaps this association that renders experimental works theoretically challenging, not simply for the art novice.
Wildfire Ash as a Medium
Skip to content While many rejoice at the fact that climate change is comprising a larger role in political parlance, its manifestations are disparate and geographically specific. Indeed, residents of the Western United States have visualized the Anthropocene — the current geological phase of increased human intervention in the planet’s ecosystem — in worsening drought conditions, drying lake beds, and increasingly frequent wildfires.
“Pornographic” Mural in Salt Lake City Suburb Causes Confusion, Outrage
Midvale, Utah recently instituted a cultural revitalization project to enhance its downtown. A large mural depicting two nude figures and a ghoulish specter has become the talk of the town. Midvale, Utah is situated between Salt Lake City and “Silicon Slopes,” a much-lauded hub of technological and entrepreneurial fervor that attracts throes of outsiders to our stunningly beautiful, yet landlocked state.
Salt Lake City Bids Farewell to John Sproul’s Beloved Nox Contemporary
John Sproul, a prominent local artist and owner of Nox Contemporary, will close the gallery following the end of Jared Steffensen’s exhibition Idem, Norms, Dorms Mine on November 4, 2022. SALT LAKE CITY—John Sproul is well known to many in the Utah arts community. A gregarious, if soft spoken figure, Sproul crafts textured paintings that encase human figures in layers of pigment, inviting a rumination on both the formal qualities of his artmaking and the psychology of his subjects alike.
Mary Toscano Draws a Sense of Foreboding and Loneliness
SALT LAKE CITY — Artist Mary Toscano’s work is contemplative and methodical. Her drawings betray the patient and meditative process underlying an artistic craft which requires constant repetition to master. Her exhibition In Solution, on view at Salt Lake City’s Alice Gallery, posits water-laden environments with eroded household items such as eyeglasses and gardening tools as allegories for the frailty of memory.
The Andy Warhol Lecture That Never Happened
SALT LAKE CITY — One is hard pressed to find a modern art icon as ubiquitous as Andy Warhol, an artist whose work is emblazoned on memorabilia the world over, subject of an Emmy-nominated Netflix series, and whose Marilyn Monroe silkscreen shattered records in May of this year as the most expensive 20th-century artwork ever sold.
New Salt Lake City Gallery Current Work Arrives at a Transitional Time for the Local Art Scene
Current Work, founded by longtime arts advocate Tiffini Porter, raises the contemporary art bar in Salt Lake City. The gallery also fills several sudden gaps in Utah’s creative ecosystem. SALT LAKE CITY—Tiffini Porter has been an arts lover for as long as she can remember. Though not an artist herself, she has, over the years, volunteered on several art museum and nonprofit boards to bolster support for Utah’s vibrant creative communities.
Energy Interests in Utah Threaten “World’s Longest Art Gallery”
NINE MILE CANYON, Utah — Remarkably well-preserved depictions of animals, symbols, and human figures adorn the sleek red rocks of Nine Mile Canyon, composing what experts refer to as the largest continuous collection of Indigenous rock art in North America. Located in the Book Cliffs mountain range three hours south of Salt Lake City, the canyon takes its name from famed western explorer John Wesley Powell’s mapping triangulation of a nearby area.
Utah’s Expanded Art Budget Increases Opportunities for Artists
The pandemic forced Utah’s arts organizations to get creative with funding sources. The strategy ultimately allowed for more direct aid for individual artists and novel programming. SALT LAKE CITY—In 1899, three years after statehood, Utah became the nation’s first to form a state-run arts agency thanks to local legislative trailblazer and artist Alice Merrill Horne.
Air - Southwest Contemporary
The exhibition Air considers Salt Lake City’s rising air pollution and the impacts of climate change on the environment and social justice. Air July 16–December 11, 2022 Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City Vital to our existence, air’s ubiquity is also what allows us to neglect it and take for granted its abundance.
"This is the Place”: Utah’s Public Art as Religious Mythmaking and Resistance
A survey of Utah’s public monuments and architecture reveals devotion to the LDS faith, but various prominent examples of resistance to this narrative abound.
Two Artists Address the Crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
SALT LAKE CITY — A collaborative art exhibition aims to demonstrate the transformative properties of art as a vehicle for healing, while also bringing awareness to the international epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women, as well as the violence inflicted on the LGBTQ+ population.
Review: Urban Pop Goes Awry Despite Local and International Talents
Urban Pop in Bountiful, Utah offers a unique opportunity to see big names, but the exhibition fails to situate artists within the movements to which the show claims they belong. Urban Pop July 29–September 10, 2022 Bountiful Davis Art Center, Bountiful, Utah The modest but burgeoning Bountiful Davis Art Center boasts an impressive forty-year history as an art institution that’s thrived in a suburb of Salt Lake City.
Work in Progress with Amber Tutwiler
The large-scale paintings of recent Salt Lake City transplant Amber Tutwiler blend figural realism with abstraction to uncover the myriad ways in which technology dislodges notions of the self. Amber Tutwiler has a longstanding interest in doubles, doppelgangers, and twins. She relayed this unique fascination to me on a hot day in early June 2022 from her studio in the Urban Arts Alliance building in west Salt Lake City.
Will Artists Ever Be Forgiven Their Student Loans?
In the fall of 2021, the Biden administration announced plans to massively overhaul the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, a federal service plagued for years by confusing eligibility criteria and complaints of ineffective management.
UMFA Highlights Utah in the 1970s, From the Spiral Jetty to Voter Rights
Curator Alana Wolf mines the University of Utah’s archives to backdrop the various occurrences of the 1970s—the formative decade in which Robert Smithson’s earthwork Spiral Jetty made its debut. SALT LAKE CITY, UT—In the spring of 1970, Robert Smithson and his wife and fellow artist Nancy Holt solidified a special use lease with the Utah Division of State Lands for ten acres at the Great Salt Lake, setting in motion the creation of one of the 20th century’s most well-known artworks.
On-Site Vigil of the “Dying” Great Salt Lake Moves State Lawmakers
During Utah’s 2022 legislative session, poet and community leader Nan Seymour crafted a site vigil and collective poem, an act of community activism that highlighted the in-flux Great Salt Lake. SALT LAKE CITY, UT—“Irreplaceable” is the word poet and writer Nan Seymour uses to describe Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
Abstract Art in the Southwest Is as Vast as the Region’s Terrain
Sheldon Harvey, "Convergence" (2022), oil on canvas, 59 x 84 inches (all images courtesy Modern West Fine Art) SALT LAKE CITY — Utah has never quite assimilated into the romantic lore of cowboys and Native American souvenir culture popularized by cities throughout the Southwest. Known instead for Mormon pioneers, sweeping mountains, and sprawling deserts, the state’s artistic variety is seemingly as vast as its terrain.
In the heart of one of the nation’s most conservative states, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, led by Laura Hurtado and Jared Steffensen, brings groundbreaking contemporary art to the state. Jared Steffensen and Laura Hurtado at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Salt Lake City. Photo: Niki Chan Wylie.
Work in Progress with Mitsu Salmon
Salt Lake City artist Mitsu Salmon explores issues of racism, environmentalism, and sexuality. Her performance-based approach to a multi-disciplinary practice crafts an immersive experience between artist and viewer. Mitsu Salmon is a current Utah Museum of Contemporary Art artist in residence. Photo: Amelia Charter. Courtesy the artist.
Review: In Memoriam: Carbon Paintings by Cara Despain
Cara Despain’s exhibition In Memoriam: Carbon Paintings at Utah’s Kimball Art Center confronts the pressing environmental and moral calamities of the American West. Cara Despain, In Memoriam: Carbon Paintings, installation view, 2021, Kimball Art Center, Park City. Photo: Claire Wiley. Courtesy Kimball Art Center.
Jaclyn Wright’s Blaze Orange Uses Photography to Question the “American West”
SALT LAKE CITY — In late 2020, Utah made headlines as the location of a mysterious monolith, a nearly 10-foot-tall structure unlawfully placed in the desert by anonymous persons on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The act of infringing upon protected space without permission, and the subsequent destruction of the site’s ecology by the ensuing pilgrimage of eager fans, raised questions about access and the consumption of public lands.
These new Japanese art exhibitions from the 20th century reveal hidden treasures
SALT LAKE CITY — There’s much to love about Japanese art — from the glorious landscape scenes, to the graceful human portraits and from the labor intensive sumi-e ink drawings, to the gold-leaf covered screens — centuries of Japanese artmaking weave a luminous tale of patient dedication and cultural vibrancy.
In Utah’s first Wasatch Studio Tour, more than 120 artists want you to come find them
SALT LAKE CITY — More than 120 artists in the Salt Lake Valley are opening their studios to the public this weekend, and there’s an interactive Google map that can help you access them all. Large cities like New York and San Francisco regularly hold open studio tours that give visitors a sneak peek into the artist’s workspace. But Utah artists have yet to coordinate an open studio collective — until now. Utah’s first open studio tour will premiere along the Wasatch Front Oct.
What are Utah artists creating right now? The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art's new director invites you to come and see
SALT LAKE CITY — Nestled between the Salt Palace and Abravanel Hall, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art is a striking, angular structure that, through its abstract façade, anticipates the sort of groundbreaking art contained within. Now, under the leadership of Laura Hurtado, the UMOCA's new executive director, the museum hopes to engage and recruit art lovers to art that is often misunderstood.
At UMFA's 'Power Couples' exhibit, it takes two to tango
1 of 8 View 8 Items Utah Museum of Fine Arts Gallery view of "Power Couples: The Pendant Format in Art" at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, on display through Dec. 8. SALT LAKE CITY — Along a wall in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, two lovers communicate with each other from inside the bounds of their own distinct portraits. Situated in her room, a woman delicately hushes her lover with a finger raised to her mouth, while her male companion lovingly gestures to her as he departs.
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