Exhibitions Open Jun 8 through Jul 17, 2026
Fri, Jun 19, 6-9pm: Opening Reception & Salt Lake Gallery Stroll
Fri, Jul 17, 6-9pm: Salt Lake Gallery Stroll
Laura Hope Mason & Claire Tollstrup & Elizabeth Sanchez: Deserts We Have Crossed
Exhibition Statement
Deserts We Have Crossed explores the literal, figurative, spiritual, and metaphysical aspects of the desert. The three artists' paintings examine the desert through distinct styles and visions. Each artist has found beauty in the harsh, barren land and its symbolism. The paintings offer different visual representations of desert environments, as well as the symbolism the three artists infuse in their work as they travel through challenging personal deserts.
The artists offer differing perspectives of the desert. Mason’s suggestion of distant mirages symbolizes the desperate search for water and nourishment and the absence of other humans. Tollstrup’s plants and birds symbolize the rebirth, growth and life that can come from our deserts of loss and despair. Sanchez’s figures symbolize struggle and hope, not only in desert environments, but in her own survival of cancer. The viewer will be transported to the desert in the collective body of work. The artists invite the viewer to consider the symbolism of the desert and reflect on the personal deserts they have crossed. The collection of paintings offers the desert as a place of hope and triumph over adversity.
Bios
Laura Hope Mason is an artist and native of Salt Lake City, Utah. She graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah. Her work has been displayed at Finch Lane Gallery, Alvin Gittins Gallery, Springville Museum of Art, Ogden Contemporary Arts, Bountiful Davis Art Center, and the Salt Lake County Library system. Her work was also recently purchased by the Alice Merrill Horne Art Collection. She is currently painting minimalist Utah mountain landscapes.
Claire Tollstrup is a Salt Lake City artist who has spent her life in Utah. She has been oil painting for 20 years, showing her work in various competitions and shows including: Edmonds & Beyond Plein Air Paint Out at the Cole Gallery in Edmonds, Washington, Artscape at the Arboretum” at the Dallas Arboretum in Dallas, Texas, and Art At The Park at This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City. Claire also teaches workshops and retreats with her teaching partner, Lynne Millar. They have taught in San Miguel Allende, Mexico for the past 2 years.
Elizabeth Sanchez, a Chihuahua, Mexico native, earned her BFA in Painting from Brigham Young University. Specializing in portraiture and figurative works, her art explores themes of identity and human emotion. She has showcased her work in notable exhibitions, including This is How the World Ends, BYU in Provo (2023), Tiny Art Show at the Museum Frida Kahlo in Mexico City (2023), and as a visiting artist at the 35th Annual Palo Alto Creche in California (2022). Her work was also featured in SELF: Explorations of Identity at the Springville Museum of Art in 2020.
Michelle Wentling: Without Care
Exhibition Statement
Through craft practices of papermaking, quilting, and beadwork, Without Care meditates on the current ecological state of Superfund sites where minerals featured in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 2025 List of Critical Minerals have been extracted and processed. This federal list outlines minerals deemed vital for U.S. economic and national security. The recent expansion of this list brings with it a warning of a potential mining boom in the West. As this list slates minerals for future extraction, Without Care surveys a living archive of Critical Mineral operations in the Salt Lake region. With a focus on the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine and US Magnesium, artist Michelle Wentling sheds light on how economic and national security priorities shape land use in the West.
The artist begins each piece with a series of site visits––walking, drawing observations, and gathering plants from these disturbed landscapes. She then processes materials into handmade papers to piece into symbolic quilt forms that convey a feeling, an observation, or a lesson evoked by these sites. The exhibition title “Without Care” is a translation of the Latin root of “security.” Playing off this phrase, the artist engages slow, meticulous, careful material processes that contrast the land ethic witnessed at these sites. For Wentling, place-based craft practices carry the potential to steward both land and culture while offering an alternative to the domination mindset that inspires such mineral operations. As the Western U.S. sits at the precipice of a potential mining boom, Without Care asks us to reckon with ecosystems, communities, and knowledges broken and to reimagine what we might create amid our own ruins.
Bio
Michelle Wentling grew up in rural Ohio and currently lives in Salt Lake City, UT. She is an artist and grant writer with a background studying Environmental Humanities. Her practice traces ecological and cultural histories of place through material exploration, craft, and text. Working primarily with processes of weaving, writing, and papermaking, she derives material and meaning from landscapes marked by industrialization and disturbance.
