If you’ve been to South Main in the past month, you might’ve noticed some gorgeous new art on the walls throughout the gym.
Last week we hosted our first Gallery Night at South Main featuring work by Ron Winsett. His photographic prints of our Great Salt Lake are the first to be placed throughout the second and third floors as part of the Rotating Art Program, taking up formerly empty wall space with documentation of the receding GSL shoreline.
The Front has implemented the Rotating Art Program to support, promote, and acquire artwork from local artists for the facility. Winsett is the first of five featured artists chosen by a robust committee of local makers to be hung on the walls of South Main. In the next six months, you’ll see works by Amber Britton, Annette Orrock, Christiana Wamsley, and Molly Powers. At the end of it all, South Main will have a commissioned work from at least one of these artists, and then we start the whole cycle over again.
Alongside work from our Art Programs Manager and local ceramicist, Cat Velasquez, a bulk of effort in getting local art at South Main has been done by a small committee of artists, curators, and professors who call Salt Lake home. Rather than our own staff handpicking works to go on the walls, this committee has organized a robust application process and vetted dozens of local artists to find the very best for our space. We’re serious about doing this right!
Andrew Rice
A Rocky Mountain West native, Andrew Rice has been a part of the Salt Lake City story since earning his MFA at the University of Utah in 2013. Rice currently works as a lecturer and studio manager at Weber State University while maintaining his art practice as a printmaker. Rice’s work ranges from what feels like dozens of printmaking mediums, but his most recent works, and our favorites, are collaged boards no bigger than the size of a magazine spread featuring archival snippets of comic books. Flattening hopeful stories of futures to come into static cityscapes of nuclear war and iconography of all things capital, Rice’s work asks viewers to look closely, parse through data overload, and grapple both with what could have been, and what is.
Rachel Becker
Rachel Becker is a longstanding member of the Millcreek Arts Council, experienced curator, and private glass artist with a focus on craft with recycled materials. In the almost 4 years Becker has been with the Millcreek Arts Council, she has dedicated her time to creating environments for the community to participate and enjoy art, including co-hosting monthly art exhibits and artist receptions with the Millcreek Library Branch and managing over 70 artists for the Millcreek Arts Fest in 2024. Becker continues to manage these events and to coordinate free art classes for the community in the Millcreek Common space.
Hannah Vaughn
Hannah Vaughn, AIA, is an architect and educator based in Salt Lake City. While you might not immediately recognize her name, you would know her work from miles away. The primary designer for our Salt Lake and South Main locations, Vaughn effortlessly blends modern architectural style with sustainability and locality. Hannah’s work is centered around the primacy of making, craft as an expression of the value of things, and the necessary resourcefulness of building. The connection to material, people, and place is expanded with a mission in practice to generate work that is both pragmatic and poetic – architecture that is responsible to the community and the future; spaces that silently frame meaningful human experience and have a positive impact beginning to end.
Taylor Wright
Taylor Wright is a Utah native artist whose practice utilizes oil paint to create compelling contemporary vanitas works. In addition to his art practice, Wright works as the exhibition designer at the UVU museum of art. Wright’s paintings fall into two main categories of work: the Still Life series, and the holy Noise series. Both bodies are influenced by 17th century painting, their color, subject, and lighting echoing works by Pieter Claesz and others from the Dutch Golden Age. While these paintings focus on the inanimate, their reference to 20th century mainstays, including ransom notes, milk boxes, and confederate monuments, give them life.
Jorge Rodriguez
Jorge Rodriguez is a Utah based artist, public school teacher and radio host. A graduate of Utah Valley University with a BFA in Visual Arts and Communication, Jorge’s expertise is based both in tactile arts and storytelling. Rodriguez’s involvement in and passion for the Latino community in Park City led him to create the town’s only Spanish radio show, Casa Domingo, on KPCW. Park City is commonly known as a white, affluent ski community, but in reality, hosts a large Latino population, most of Mexican origin. Casa Domingo is one of just a few Spanish radio shows in Utah, and delves deeply into the current cultural, social and political issues affecting the local Latino community. Jorge has been a key player in joining community organizations in Park City to promote the appreciation of Latino cultures and the contributions of Latinos to the area.
With this many talented art-minded folks on the committee, we’ve been able to snag some thoughtful, innovative, and quality work for our members to engage with. Come by our next gallery night on November 2nd to see the latest works, or swing through South Main’s upper floors to see Ron’s latest work and vote on your favorites.
