Salt Lake City’s Contemporary Art Galleries You Should Visit

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In a bid to explore contemporary cultural landscape, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art regularly exhibits artworks by local, national and international artists throughout its four gallery spaces. Innovative past exhibitions include Stephanie Leitch’s ‘Untitled Apogee’ which focused on the space between architecture and gravity with her on-site installation, and Raivo Puusemp’s ‘Dissolution’ described as ‘a survey of aesthetic structures and systematic processes’. Aside from exhibitions, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art hosts regular events, shows films, holds classes and gives presentations to encourage a wider variety of people to enjoy all the museum has to offer. On the second Saturday of the month the gallery hosts Family Art Saturdays with free hands-on art projects for children.

This 10,000 square foot gallery space is home to A Gallery, one of the most prestigious fine art galleries in the state. A Gallery exhibits artworks across a range of media, but primarily painting and sculpture, by both local artists and artists from all over the world. Recent and future exhibitions include work by painters Roland Thompson and Jennifer Rasmusson, amongst a range of other accomplished and emerging artists. With both an indoor gallery space and an impressive sculpture garden, visitors can enjoy abstract, landscape and figurative paintings amongst contemporary fine art sculptures as they roam around A Gallery.

Acting as a support base and home for creative minds within the community, Sugar Space is both an art gallery and a hub for performance and art classes. Artists can rent the gallery space to curate exhibitions of their works and locals can sign up to learn to tap dance or perfect their acting skills in one of the many rolling community courses. Despite being a smaller venue than many of its competing galleries, Sugar Space has hosted exhibitions of pieces by photographer Jeremy Bigelow and visual art displays by Ching-I Chang in its mission to support and showcase both renowned and emerging artists.

A participant in Salt Lake City’s Gallery Stroll, which takes place on the third Friday of each month, Phillips Gallery is the oldest commercial gallery in the intermountain west. With rotating monthly exhibitions spread across three floors of gallery space, a sculpture deck and a sculpture garden there is always a new reason to explore Phillips Gallery. Works on show are primarily by Utah-based artists or others from further afield who have some form of association with Utah. Pieces are displayed in a variety of media from painting to ceramics, sculpture to prints and artists who have exhibited here include Peter Cole, Jim Jacobs, Earl Jones and Teresa Jordan.

Much more than just an art gallery, The Hive Gallery also hosts regular photo contests, fashion shows and music events, as well as providing art classes for both youths and adults. Set in historic Trolley Square in downtown Salt Lake City, the gallery’s aim is to inspire and bring out the artist in all of us. Through their special events and rotating exhibitions The Hive Gallery wishes to raise awareness and appreciation for the arts in the local community. The 1600 square foot exhibition space is available for rental for budding artists to host their own shows. Previous exhibitors include photographer and poet Tagen Baker and photographer Jake Garn.

The perfect stop off point for those looking to fill their homes with ethnic treasures, the Arts of the World Gallery sells a huge selection of intricately crafted decorative pieces from around the world. Visitors to the gallery can browse and purchase fair trade folk art, masks, Buddhist statues, terracotta ceramics, handmade bone and silver jewellery and other ornamental pieces from a range of countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, India and Africa. The gallery imports both traditional and contemporary indigenous pieces to give Salt Lake City citizens and explorers the rare opportunity to appreciate a broader selection of artworks than often displayed in this part of the world.

Home to an exquisite collection of breath-taking pieces, the Hope Gallery offers visitors the unique opportunity to discover one of the best personal collections of art in this part of the country. A huge selection of artists are exhibited here including, but certainly not limited to, Anton Thorenfeldt, Emilio Fossati and Albert Baure. Pottering around the 15,000 square foot space, art admirers can marvel at colourful pastels, intricate portraits, skillful etchings, mesmerising black and white photographs and perfected still lifes. Hope Gallery has a sister gallery, Park City Gallery, also in Utah.

Another participant in Salt Lake City’s Gallery Stroll, the 15th Street Gallery exhibits work by award-winning local artists as well as acting as a platform for budding new artists. Situated in the boutique commercial district of 15th & 15th Sugarhouse, this is a stylish and modern fine art gallery worthy of an afternoon’s exploration. Artists that have participated in previous exhibitions include the vibrant painter Dennis Smith, landscape artist Stephen Stauffer and abstract painter Gary Max Collins. For lover’s of souvenirs and keepsakes, the gallery also has a fantastic gift shop sure to tempt visitors into purchasing a decorative vase or pretty necklace to take home.