ST. GEORGE — The work of a trio of artists goes on display at the St. George Art Museum on June 14, each providing a decidedly different aesthetic to Museum visitors. Working in unique mediums, the artists bring a colorful, vibrant sensibility to their craft that’s perfect for summer viewing.
Jared Steffensen currently resides in Salt Lake City, where he is an artist and the Curator of Exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. After earning an MFA from The University of Texas at Austin in 2006, he created works that have been exhibited throughout the U.S. as well as in Mexico, Germany and the Netherlands. In Steffensen’s Museum exhibit, Over and Over and Over and Over, he draws inspiration from the act of skateboarding, transforming used skateboard decks into spirited, physical expressions of movement and improvisation. By experimenting with spatial context, he challenges viewers to reconsider how art can inhabit and activate space.
Logan-based Kathryn Knudsen earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Brigham Young University, where she taught in the Studio Arts program. She enjoys experimenting with an eclectic array of materials, and is especially interested in the use of art to examine and bring notice to humans’ impact on the environment. Knudsen’s exhibit, Collaborating with Excess, is a richly layered exploration of transformation, memory and reclamation. By combining traditional media, such as oil paint and canvas, with found objects and secondhand materials, she forms unpredictable labyrinths.
“Both artists explore what it means to revisit the past,” noted St. George Art Museum Preparator Stephanie Wheeler. “Jared accomplishes this through places that echo with movement, and Kathryn through materials that feel like keepsakes. The result is thoughtful, a little mysterious and totally engaging.”
Rounding out the Summer shows will be Parkside Portraits, three pieces by the late Southern Utah artist Robert Shepherd that are a part of the St. George Art Museum’s permanent collection. Dropping out of college during the Great Depression, Shepherd became an architectural draftsman, then a muralist working for the LDS Church, and also participated in the design of Cecil B. DeMille’s production of The Ten Commandments. Returning to Utah upon retirement, he utilized the transparent-watercolor technique to capture landscapes and other subjects.
The public is invited to attend a special reception marking the opening of the St. George Art Museum’s Summer Exhibitions, from 6 to 8 p.m. on June 14. Admission to the Museum is free; donations are welcome. Tours of the Museum are available upon request.
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About the St. George Art Museum
Located at 47 East 200 North across from the Main Street U.S. Post Office in historic downtown St. George, the former sugar beet seed storage facility was transformed into an elegant showcase for art in 1997. With 1,400 pieces in the permanent collection, the St. George Art Museum is open from Tuesday- Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The museum is donation based. Donations directly support education and operating expenses of the museum.
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