Artists

Born in Bohemia, Wulf Barsch von Benedikt is now an American citizen. He received a rigorous Bauhaus training in Germany from master students of Kandinsky and Klee. He got an MFA at Werkkunstschule, Hanover, Germany, in 1967, before coming to America. He is a professor of art in the Department of Visual Arts, Brigham Young University. He presently resides in Boulder, Utah, and commutes to Provo.

A graduate of Brigham Young University’s BFA and MFA program, Bethanne Andersen initially focused on abstract painting but later moved to New York to study illustration at the School of Visual Arts. As an illustrator, she has received critical praise for her work and has earned the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, the Boston Globe Horn Book Honor Award, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Honor Book Award. She currently teaches art at Brigham Young University.

Brian Kershisnik lives with his wife, Suzanne, and three children in Kanosh, Utah. The son of a petroleum geologist, he grew up in Angola, Thailand, Texas, and Pakistan. After serving a mission in Denmark, he took a bachelor’s degree in painting at BYU and a graduate degree in printmaking at the University of Texas in Austin. His paintings have been featured at numerous solo and group exhibitions, and images of them have been reproduced in numerous books and catalogs. Kershisnik has himself created a notable anthology of his own paintings, Painting from Life, published in 2002 by Guild Publishing of Madison, Wisconsin.

Emily Plewe grew up in Centerville, Utah, and attended Wellesley College where she studied art and literature. She then pursued a master’s degree at BYU. Emily and her husband, John, who is also an artist and whose work will be featured in the next issue of Dialogue, lived for many years in Los Angeles before moving to Salt Lake City. They now live in the Sugarhouse neighborhood where Emily is involved in the community council. As a child, Emily would explore the night sky with her grandfather who taught her astronomy which he brought to life through his telescope. This interest was augmented when she later learned about quantum mechanics and particle physics. Plewe’s abstract paintings are inspired by her interest in “space, energy and inter￾actions—both physical and metaphysical. I am fascinated by the ambiguous and mysterious spatial depth it is possible to achieve with painting.” Her work reflects the intersection of her interest in physics and astronomy with principles of design and with achieving a sense of space and form in her paintings. One of the strengths of Plewe’s work is the dynamic tension in her compositions between the two-dimensional shapes and surface quality of the paintings and the sense of three-dimensional space that she achieves. The shapes and textures are not merely on the surface but appear to float in the depth of the field of color they inhabit. Emily gives great credit regarding her decision to pursue art to Ken Baxter from whom she took a plein air painting class in high school. It was he who planted the seed that one could pursue art as a career. More of Plewe’s work can be seen at www.umbergallery.com/emilyplewe/.

I [Bret Hanson] was born in Blackfoot, Idaho, and raised in a religious home. Both the physical and spiritual landscapes of my youth have an impact on my work. Stars in the night sky, flat farmland, and the Rocky Mountains nearby all helped shape the way I interpret my surroundings. I was fascinated with space and flight and wanted to be a pilot and transcend this world. There has always been a strong sense of striving to return to God’s presence and navigate through the trials of this life to achieve eternal life. Religious symbolism plays a prominent role in my thought process as a Mormon artist. I received a BFA in fine arts (printmaking) from Utah State University in 2004 and an MFA in fine arts (printmaking) from the University of New Mexico in 2008.

Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (17 January 1574 – 8 September 1637), was a prominent English Paracelsian physician with both scientific and occult interests. He is remembered as an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist and Rosicrucian.

Jared Steffensen is an artist and curator who currently resides in Salt Lake City, where he is the Curator of Exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. He earned his BFA in Intermedia Sculpture from the University of Utah in 2002, and an MFA from The University of Texas at Austin in 2006, where he was also a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States as well as in Mexico, Germany and The Netherlands.

JASON LANEGAN {http://jasonlanegan.blogspot.com/} joined the LDS Church on July 25, 1990, the summer between his junior and senior years in high school, served a mission in North Carolina, attended BYU-Idaho, and received degrees from Northern Arizona University (sculpture) and Eastern Washington University (art education), followed by a graduate degree in sculpture with a minor in art history from Brigham Young University where he began his current explorations into reliquaries. He has been head sculptor for Paleoforms, director of the Morris Fine Art Gallery, sculpture professor, and museum director at Northern Arizona University, and is currently gallery director for the Department of Visual Arts at BYU. He believes that our identity, which he sees as reliquiries, is indeed con￾structed but not pure invention: “It is the objects and events that we each find meaningful that are incorporated into our self-image.” Reinforced by “continual self-evaluation,” he finds irony and humor in the ongoing quest to “leave our worldly desires behind piece by piece.” Jason, his wife, Kimberly, and their five children live in Spanish Fork, Utah.

JEN HARMON ALLEN is a Utah sculptor and installation artist whose subject matter is the human body with a psychological backstory. She grew up in Connecticut where she learned to look for stone walls and abandoned house foundations in the woods near her home. She studied bronze casting at Wellesley and received her MFA at Brigham Young University. She states: “The human spirit is forever but it knows that the body is not. Faced with the reality of the body’s eventual treachery, our spirit wants to be given credit for sticking around. So I create work that points to ways the human spirit leaves traces of itself all over the place. An empty dress or an army of miniature legs marching through space are examples of this pull between body and spirit. I’m always looking for signs of life in objects.” Harmon Allen lives in Eagle Mountain, Utah, with her husband and two rambunctious sons. Her work can be seen at www.plasterwoman.com.

Sunny Taylor was born and raised in Utah. She attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2005. She then received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2007 from The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. Taylor taught as an assistant professor, from 2008-14 in the Studio Arts program of BYU.