Artists

Hildebrando de Melo (born 1978) is an Angolan visual artist. De Melo grew up in Portugal where he lived with his grandmother, converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and where he began art. He returned to Angola and pursued his art career. Throughout his career, he has displayed his artwork in multiple exhibits around the world. He has won awards for his art. He is largely self-taught and some of his artwork is politically motivated and includes paintings, drawings, sculptures and multi-media. His art is also personal to his life, with his experiences being the subject matter of many of his art pieces.

CASEY JEX SMITH received a BFA in Painting from Brigham Young University and an MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. He currently resides in Provo, Utah with his wife and fellow artist Amanda Smith and their two children and works as a UX Designer. His art has been exhibited at The Drawing Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, Yancey Richardson Gallery, Roberts & Tilton, Galerie Polaris, and Allegra LaViola Gallery. Casey uses the structures of role-play-gaming and religious ritual to create allegorical drawings. Leveling up, isometric perspective, character creation, quest items, mythical beasts, and battles are used to mirror real life scenarios where the individual butts up against institutional power structures. He contrasts the reward system in gaming that is finely tuned to balance work with pleasure to the unequal reward system of global capitalism. His visual style draws largely from the study of master etchings, Dungeons & Dragons manuals, Biblical narratives, Minimalism, and underground comics.

JACKIE LEISHMAN grew up in Georgia, moving to the Los Angeles area after completing her Masters of Fine Arts degree from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. Originally trained as a photographer, she now works in collage. Using both traditional and non-traditional materials, including fragments of old projects, Leishman explores the dichotomies she witnesses. It is the push and pull between two ideas that intrigues her most, the animating tensions between destruction and creation, expansion and contraction, explosion and implosion She has shown her work nationally, won awards, and taught fine art at universities in Utah and California. Her work is beloved by designers such as Leanne Ford and Emily Henderson. She recently exhibited in Downtown LA and currently has a solo show at Granary Arts, titled “Heaving into Mountains.” She continues to participate in the ever-evolving art collaboration, The Fourth Artist, which focuses on women’s issues and the lives of women artists. She recently began a collaboration with evolutionary biologist Steven Peck on a body of work investigating the loss we will continue to experience with climate change.

KENT CHRISTENSEN was born in Los Angeles in 1957 and grew up in the orange, lemon, and avocado groves of Southern California, where he gained a fondness for orange crate labels, popular culture, and local fast food. Graduating from Art Center College of Design in 1986, he embarked upon a successful career as an illustrator in New York, where he lived for many years. His clients included TIME, BusinessWeek, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, and many others. More recently his work has been seen in gallery and museum shows in the US and internationally, with representation since 2006 by London’s gallery Eleven. Since 2014 he has collaborated with London shoe designer Camilla Elphick. He now lives primarily at Sundance in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. He teaches at both the University of Utah and Utah Valley University.

DOUG HIMES {[email protected]} is an associate professor of art at Southern Virginia University. He previously taught printmaking at Brigham Young University and was a member of the Print Studies Workshop there. He came to Southern Virginia University from Missouri State, where he taught drawing and design. Himes’s paintings have been exhibited widely in the West and Midwest.

MICHELLE FRANZONI THORLEY {[email protected]} creates art that focuses on the ancestral power to heal. She is a self-taught artist who has claimed power through embracing her Mexican-American heritage and her experiences as an LDS woman artist. Her work has been displayed at the Writ and Vision gallery, LDS Church History Museum, and the Springville Museum of Art. She spoke at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in New York City in June 2019 about diversity in LDS art. She is passionate about plants, family his￾tory, and the stories of women. Her work and words can be found on Instagram at @flora_familiar. She lives in Utah with her spouse and three young children.

HEIDI SOMSEN {www.heidimollersomsen.com} was born in Saskatchewan, and raised on the coast of British Columbia. She received a BFA in ceramics from Brigham Young University (1995) and an MFA in studio art from the University of Utah (2011). She is a two time Utah Artist grant recipient and has been included in three publications: 500 Figures in Clay, Volume 2; Utah Art Utah Artists: 150 Year Survey; and Utah Painting and Sculpture. Currently, Heidi teaches at the University of Utah and the Visual Art Institute. “From a young age I have always had a playful interaction with material, creating art out of whatever I could find: drift wood, rocks, moss, and a nice coating of Elmer’s glue as glaze. My school report cards often stated that I daydreamed too much—I’m afraid this is still the case.”

HANNAH MASON is an artist studying at Brigham Young University. Her work explores her relationship with people, places, and events through a system of marks and patterns.

CAMILLA STARK is an artist, designer, storyteller, and occasional desert prophet. She is intensely curious and is interested in natural history, religion, and folklore. She lives in Provo, Utah and is a founding member of the ARCH-HIVE.

NAMON BILLS received a BFA from Brigham Young University and an MFA from Utah State University. He works primarily in collage and mixed media. In addition to exhibiting his own work in solo and juried shows, Namon has curated several large group exhibitions. He lives in Santaquin, Utah with his wife and two children.