The Independent
A spectacular showcase of creativity and vision awaits art enthusiasts in the annual Southern Utah Art Invitational Exhibition and Sale. This vibrant exhibition celebrates the work of the region’s finest artists and runs June 26 through August 29 at the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery located on the lower level of the Braithwaite Fine Arts Building on the Southern Utah University campus. The Invitational opens officially on Friday, June 26, with a reception starting at 5 p.m., which is part of the 2015 Cedar City Arts Council Final Friday Art Walk program. Admission is free, and the general public is encouraged to attend.
This year’s Southern Utah Art Invitational is a colorful menagerie of mediums that features works by some of southern Utah’s most celebrated artists and will include more than 100 pieces, including landscapes, abstracts, sculpture, ceramics, pottery, and more.
The exhibition will include such pieces as our those depicting our region’s landscape, boldly captured in pastels by Arlene Braithwaite and Marje Eakin-Petty, in watercolors by Spike Ress and Debbie Robb, in oils by Mary Jabens, Travis Humphreys, and J. Brad Holt and photography by Sonya Smith and Katharine Villard. Beyond landscapes, there is distinctive jewelry by Susan Chapman, colorful abstracts by Andrew Marvick, remarkable ceramics and pottery by Barbara Ellard, Susan Harris, Seth Green, and Harold Snider, and breathtaking welded-steel wildlife by sculptor Robyn Twitchell. Other participating artists include Gail Alger, Arthur Blessing, Megumi Dold, Sandy Gilles, Yidan Guo, Libby Hedden, Wilamarie Huelscamp, Leslie Jenson, Glen Lyman, Greg Mauger, Marta Mitchell, Megan Nelson, Valerie Orlemann, David Pettit, Ray Pittman, Fiona Phillips, Todd Prince, Mark Richey, Clayton Rippey, Frederick Stephens, Asher J. Swan, Carrie Trenholm, Diane Walsh, Lyman Whitaker, Mona Woolsey, and Mike Zaweski.
The artists featured in the Southern Utah Art Invitational Exhibition and Sale are committed to the great legacy that art has the power to inform, inspire, and influence. Many of these artists recognize this power, so they donate their work to the annual Friends of the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery Art Auction. The proceeds from the Art Invitational go to benefit the community through education and outreach programs for Iron County students as well as ongoing support of the Southern Utah Museum of Art in SUU’s forthcoming Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts, scheduled to open summer 2016. Thanks to the support of these generous artists, the Braithwaite’s programs and exhibitions are free.
The Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery summer hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. For more information about the exhibitions at the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery, please call (435) 586-5432, or visit www.suu.edu/pva/artgallery.
