Sep 01
Studio VisitUtahVol. 8 Medium + Support
Salt Lake City–based artist Lenka Konopasek disrupts and decenters anthropocentrism with her three-dimensional paper sculptures, whose prickly paper strips instill aversion and attraction, as if growing out of the wall.
Sep 01
Studio VisitArizonaVol. 8 Medium + Support
Phoenix-based artist Estrella Esquilín talks about her evolving studio practice, in which community is as important as the construction materials and experimental animation she uses to address identity and place.
Aug 31
Ben Coleman, a Denver-based sound and performance artist, explores the aesthetic and conceptual contours of noise, music, and the body through installations and live events.
Aug 28
Hayley Labrum Morrison’s eerily provocative work invites viewers to contemplate the formation of identity, gender, and body politics within über-religious patriarchal systems.
Aug 24
Esther Hz discusses soil and soul in her studio and reveals her passion for farming through zoetropes created for the exhibition agriCULTURE at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.
Aug 09
Lydia see, a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator, works with diverse materials in her Tucson studio to explore social justice, foster civic engagement, and broaden access to the arts.
Aug 03
At age eighty, James Surls, an internationally recognized artist who works out of a rural Colorado studio, continues telling stories through his sculptures, drawings, prints, and rubbings.
Jul 20
Patrick Dean Hubbell (Diné), who works from his family homestead on the Navajo Nation, creates artworks that reference how Diné people think about natural elements.
Jul 12
The paintings and murals of Denver-based artist Ramón Bonilla explore the multifarious uses of the line and all of its subsequent meanings.
Jun 26
Alex Branch, a Denver-based interdisciplinary artist ponders the life-death metaphors embedded in everyday objects, the mysterious lives of flora and fauna, and the aural experiences that inspire her art.
Jun 12
Will Bruno, who lives and works at an off-grid cabin in Abiquiú, New Mexico, connects the natural and unnatural landscapes of modern life within his paintings.
May 25
David Brothers of SLC evokes dark, dingy worlds through the derelict sets he builds. Photos from his latest project, Peed Upon, offer a dire caricature of our current times.
May 03
Betelhem Makonnen of Austin expands the silences of history and develops work and language to describe nonlinear time.
Mar 22
Kathleen Wall (Jemez Pueblo and Chippewa), a Pueblo potter and winner of a New Mexico Governor’s Award, conjures happy feelings through her human forms in ceramic.
Mar 17
Tony Ortega, a prolific artist and longtime Denverite known for his acrylics, pastels, prints, and murals, observes and honors the city’s vibrant mix of Chicano, Mexican, and Anglo cultures.
Mar 03
Studio VisitNevadaVol. 7 Finding Water in the West
Nanda Sharif-pour discusses her use of living plants, soil, and video in her work from her Las Vegas, Nevada greenhouse.
Mar 03
Studio VisitTexasVol. 7 Finding Water in the West
For this social practice collective in Lubbock, Texas, the mesquite tree has become a charismatic icon for water conservation and urban afforestation.
Feb 24
Jacob Meders (Mechoopda/Maidu) works in his Phoenix studio to counter historical and contemporary stereotypes of Native Americans through printmaking that addresses issues related to culture, identity, and place.
Feb 09
The Wheeler Brothers—Bryan of Lubbock and Jeff of San Antonio—employ maximal methods influenced by humility, music, hidden hot springs, and breakdancing in the Texas Panhandle.
Jan 27
Wren Ross, a Park City, Utah, painter and social worker, plumbs our collective unconscious with stirring, uncanny work, where movement becomes a crucible for visual creation.
Jan 24
Patricia Sannit, in this deeply personal visit to her Phoenix studio, reflects on the ways loss, vulnerable ecologies, and recent residencies in Iceland and Sweden are shifting her practice.
Jan 17
Mario Zoots is a Denver-based artist who has explored the medium of collage for nearly fifteen years, and pushed against the genre's boundaries and expectations.
Dec 16
Maja Ruznic of Placitas, New Mexico builds and embraces darkness in canvas works that are informed by trauma and inspired by Carl Jung’s philosophy of the shadow self.
Dec 13
Denver-based artist and entrepreneur MarSha Robinson creates elaborate, botanical worlds and runs a thriving business under the moniker Strange Dirt.
Dec 09
Santa Fe-based textile artist Rhiannon Griego weaves wearable and displayable artworks that pay respect to the land and her Spanish and Native heritage.
Oct 24
Monica Aissa Martinez talks about her drawings of human figures, animals, and viruses during a studio visit in Phoenix, where she shares past inspirations and future projects.
Oct 21
The Southwest Contemporary team visits Roswell to do studio visits with the residents of the renowned and generous Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program.
Oct 17
William T. Carson's coal-based artworks comment on cultural relationships to fossil fuels and provoke questions about how humans value natural materials.
Sep 20
Afton Love, who lives and creates in Ojo Caliente, New Mexico, pivoted from big-picture abstract art to a form of abstraction that ponders and employs addition rather than subtraction. 1. […]
Sep 16
Cochiti Pueblo artist Jeff Suina incorporates traditional pottery materials and knowledge as well as architectural and digital technologies in sculpting angular and eye-catching works in clay.
Aug 26
Studio VisitColoradoVol. 6 Rooted: Poetics of Place
Colorado-based multidisciplinary artist Steven Yazzie (Diné, Laguna Pueblo, European ancestry) thinks of his art studio as community and land rather than an insular space bound by four walls.
Aug 26
Studio VisitNew MexicoVol. 6 Rooted: Poetics of Place
Las Cruces-based artist Sharbani Das Gupta is an observer of the earth's elements and the impact of human activity on the natural world.
Aug 23
Dallas-based artist Austin Uzor blends the figure and the Southwest landscape in oil paintings that blur the boundaries of figurative painting.
Aug 02
Yu Yu Shiratori, an artist based in Tucson, creates large-scale embroidery, jewelry, and illustrations that juxtapose materials to reflect the dichotomy of her bicultural experience.
Jun 24
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.
May 31
Albuquerque artist Reyes Padilla, born with synesthesia, paints visual representations of music in works that have appeared throughout New Mexico and on Better Call Saul.
May 24
Artist Douglas Miles (San Carlos Apache, Akimel O’odham) uses visual art and skateboard culture to amplify Indigenous voices.
Apr 19
New Mexico sculptor Jeremy Thomas uses inflation to create three-dimensional works of steel and canvas that explore air as a medium.
Apr 12
Rochelle Johnson, an artist in residence at Denver’s RedLine Contemporary Art Center, is a figurative oil painter who imbues her work with messages about women’s beauty, the Black community, and the human condition.
Apr 07
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.
Apr 05
Galveston, Texas artist Nick Barbee uses the process of abstraction in recounting American history and personal experiences in his paintings, sculpture, and installation.
Mar 24
UMOCA’s artist-in-residence program in Salt Lake City provides studio space and exhibition opportunities for Utah artists while enriching the local arts community.
Mar 08
Benjamin Timpson hand-cuts delicate pieces of ethically-sourced butterfly wings to create meticulous and moving portraits that explore trauma and healing while raising awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women.
