Cafe & Art Shop
UMOCA is now serving Intelligentsia coffee supplied by Nobrow and growing our Art Shop offering to include work from local artists and children’s books.
Below is information on artists featured in our Art Shop:
John Bell:
Nationally emerging artist John Bell explores multiple movements of contemporary art all at once, creating a hallmark painting style that comments broadly on sociopolitical issues, the impact of social media, and the ever-fluctuating values of contemporary culture. Bell, lauded as an “indiscriminate genre-blender” fuses abstract expressionism, geometric abstraction, pop art and many other artistic styles. He employs recurring images of iconic popular culture, snippets of news feeds, and social media references set against a brightly hued color palette, hard-edge, tense geometric lines and ethereal back drops.
John Bell lives and works in Salt Lake City, Utah. His work has been placed in many private collections throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has exhibited in countless group and solo exhibitions, including Art Basel, Miami, New York’s Time Warner Center, Southern Nevada Museum of Art, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City, UT
Website: www.artistjohnbell.com
Trent Call:
Trent Call was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. Graduated from the University of Utah in 2004 with a BFA. He has been publishing the zine, Swinj, since 1998. He is actively involved in a diversity of ongoing projects. Trent’s work combines formal academic painting with comics, graffiti, and popular culture. He currently works out of CAPTAIN CAPTAIN Studios in beautiful downtown Salt Lake City.
His interests range from daily phenomena, odd occurrences, history, myth, documentation of the moment, color relationship, the early American west, media culture, symmetry and sequence in pattern, and 1930′s comics & animation. He frequently work with, screen printing, oil painting, latex paint, ballpoint pen, lead, collage, and spraypaint which allows a fresh and honest translation of his interests and ideas.
Website: http://swinj.com/
Celine Downen:
“My current series focuses on the ever-changing built environment. It started with the unearthing of some old negatives of Bill and Nada’s Café, a classic greasy-spoon diner in Salt Lake that was demolished after Bill’s death in 1999. Standing on the empty lot that once held my favorite 2am-on-Saturday-morning-after-a-night-out spot, I was inspired to begin preserving these places the only way I could, through the lens of my camera.
Through photography I’ve found a way to document our disappearing cultural landscape. I’ve spent the last several years chronicling old drive-in movie theatres, motel signs, and other commercial and cultural artifacts of an earlier era that linger in the corners of our modern world. Dorothea Lange once said, “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” This is my vision of the artifacts of yesterday, captured and preserved so they may always be here today.”
Cindy Ferguson:
Cindy Ferguson was born and raised in Las Vegas to a German Cocktail Waitress and a Californian Black Jack Dealer. She won her first art competition in 5th grade by drawing dancing, caroling moose for a Christmas card. Cindy graduated with a degree in Design from BYU in 1999 and has worked as a graphic designer since then. In May of 2006, she went to visit her grandparents in the small German town of Hermuthausen. In their sitting room, they had a few traditional Scherenschnitte on the wall. The simple beauty and intricacy of the pieces inspired her to create her own. Her favorite project so far has been to work in the Tower of London for a month creating eight large papercuts for their Children’s Education Room. Currently, she works and lives in Salt Lake City with her dog, Starla.
Website: www.cindyferguson.com
Ernest Gentry:
Ernest Gentry was raised in Clinton, Mississippi. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in ceramics from the University of Mississippi in 2004. In 2010 Ernest received a Master of Fine Arts with emphasis in ceramics from Utah State University. Ernest Gentry currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, and works and teaches at Red Kiln Pottery.
These ceramic vessels are based on the influence of numerous historic and contemporary implements include multicultural metal objects such as: Nigerian currency, Chinese bell coins, Corinthian armor, and Victorian motifs. Ernest extracts formal aspects of these objects as inspiration for the synthesis of ceramic vessels. Each piece is designed and thrown on a potter’s wheel. High contrast glazes are used to offset pieces from one another.
Isaac Hastings:
Isaac Hastings is an up-and-coming artists and native to Salt Lake City, Utah. He works out of Poor Yorick Studios, a local art studio space, and is both a painter and woodwork specializing in hardwood knot “faces”, jewelry, and fine handcrafted accessories.
Website: http://ihsquared.com/, http://youtu.be/liaF8AeydLs
Corinne Humphrey:
Corinne Humphrey is the self-taught artist of the “Tao of Rudy” series of paintings, limited edition prints, greeting cards, books and other products. Using acrylic on canvas, her bold, whimsical paintings are inspired by Rudy, a formerly abused shelter mutt that Corinne found (or who found Corinne) at Friends of Animals Utah. She self-published The Tao of Rudy in 2007 and won two awards: Independent Publisher’s “Most Outstanding Book Design” and also “Honorable Mention” for Foreword’s Book of the Year. Corinne’s second book, SHOOT FOR THE MOON, Lessons on Life from a Dog Named Rudy was recently released by Chronicle Books in May 2011. Rudy donates a portion of all proceeds to Friends of Animals so that other dogs can find good homes too.
Website: www.rudyandcorrine.com, http://papercutting.blogspot.com
Christopher Kelly:
Christopher Kelly is currently a candidate seeking a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Utah. He enjoys constructing things with his hands. By abandoning preliminary planning, design, and engineering Christopher’s work questions understanding of structure and order through an evolving, instinctive process. Christopher’s current work ranges from large-scale, immersive spaceship installations to miniature-scale, geometric wood jewelry.
Website: http://chrisdavidkelly.tumblr.com/
Jimmy Lucero:
Salt Lake City artist Jimmy Lucero, who teaches painting and drawing at the University of Utah and Westminster College was born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA.
Jimmy obtained a B.S. in Biology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA and worked in science labs at UC Davis and Stanford University. After moving to Salt Lake City, Jimmy obtained his BFA (2001) and MFA (2003) from the University of Utah. In addition to teaching and developing his own artwork, Jimmy mentors future artists through public art projects including the “Bridges Over Barriers” (BOB) mosaic and mural project on the I-15 underpass and various “337” projects including “Contemporary Masters” at the Salt Lake Art Center. Jimmy is a social activist and avant-garde artist whose art depicts the plight of undocumented workers and border issues. Jimmy paints with passion towards his goal of giving a voice to those who do not have access.
Michael McGlothlen
Kali Mellus:
Kali Mellus began experimenting with resin in 2002 while attending college for a degree in art. What started as a way to create jewelry for herself eventually became a full time job. In 2004 Mellus was able to quit her day job, began crafting full time and established her brand Bykali. Mellus turns everyday objects such as hardware, leaves, plaster, and tape into pendants, buckles and wearable art. “My goal is to create something innovative and unique by using unconventional materials.” Mellus also creates leather belts and bracelets to compliment her pieces. You can find Bykali online at bykali.esty.com and locally at art and craft shows from Park City to Provo.
Website: www.bykali.esty.com
Elizabeth Ann Miklavcic:
Elizabeth Miklavcic has been studying, investigating and experimenting with digital painting for eleven years. Her E-Scape paintings were selected for the Art Access/VSA Utah; group exhibition, Landscape: Shaken Gently with a Twist, March 19-April 9, 2010. VSA is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Elizabeth was nominated for a 1992-1993 Utah Arts Council Visual Art Fellowship. The fellowship exhibition, View of Nine, was held at the Salt Lake Art Center April 3-May15, 1992. Her performance art installation, Chrysalis, was exhibited in February 1986 at the Salt Lake Art Center simultaneously with James Pigeon’s installation, and she participated in the Art Center’s 1986 lecture series.
Elizabeth Miklavcic is the Artistic Director of Another Language Performing Arts Company. Her artistic influences are filled with motion through the experience of dancing and performing since the age of four. Her E-Scape digital works are surrealistic, motional landscapes of the imagination. These two-dimensional images evoke a three-dimensional feeling, as if one could enter the surrealistic environment.
Website: www.anotherlanguage.org
Headlands Center for the Arts/Shaun O’Dell
Cat Palmer:
Cat Palmer studied photography from 1995-1999. She grew up in Orange County, California. Cat used to only shoot 35mm black and white, but she joined the “dark side” of professional digital in 2005. It will never truly be the same – she misses those smelly chemicals. Women are cat’s main subjects because to her they have such beauty and strength. Cat has resided in northern Utah since 2001, with her artist husband, Blake. Cat & Blake have a studio at Poor Yorick #B5.
Website: www.catpalmer.com
Potter Press:
Potter Press is the artistic pseudonym of married duo, Nick and Erin Potter. As a ‘press’, the Potters are most notable for their screen printed show posters and art prints, however, their collaborations extend also to other mediums, including painting, mixed media, and installation. Their work has been featured in galleries throughout Salt Lake City, including the Salt Lake Art Center and the original 337 Project. In addition, the Potters publish a series of literary and art zines under the publishing imprint, PaperNoise.
Website: http://www.potterpressart.blogspot.com/
Meghan Patrice Riley:
Meghan Patrice Riley Jewelry was founded in 2008 by metalsmith Meghan Riley to create light and wearable sculptural wire jewelry. With a background in math and geometry, each piece is inspired by volumetric forms and is crafted by hand in her New York City studio.
Mixing metals with textile techniques, she creates unique pieces with a feminine elegance and an industrial touch that are still light and dainty. Using thin, light weight silver and nylon-coated steel wire as “fiber” she forms small line segments to create geometric shapes and then eventually forms that are lightweight, flexible, and adapt to the wearer. Geometric shapes were chosen as the foundation because they are simple, basic, and elementary but can be expounded on to create multi-dimensional forms. Each form acts like a link to interconnect with other forms creating an even larger volumetric structure.
Website: http://www.meghanpatriceriley.com/
Jena Schmidt:
Jena Schmidt is a BFA student at Brigham Young University. She grew up at the base of Big Cottonwood canyon and has come to realize a symbiotic relationship with her surroundings. The abstracted landscapes depict a contemporary way of thinking about these surroundings, and revere the creations she sees daily.
Caleb Workman:
Caleb Workman has been drawing and painting in Utah for 32 years. Caleb grew up creating art on walls and on canvases and often uses hand made stencils. He recently began employing gunpowder as a medium. Caleb has been involved in several local mural and art events including The Urban Gallery at Neighborhood House and The 337 project, as well as The H20 Festival and Capitol Theatre’s Shoe In project.