Located at the east entrance of the South City campus, to the right of the front doors, is the George S. & Dolores Doré Eccles Gallery.
Through the course of the school year, and sometimes into the summer, observers can go and enjoy all different types of art, from photography to paintings and many other mediums. This academic year, the gallery and LED exhibition will feature 15 exhibits in total, three more than usual.
After receiving over 64 submissions, James Walton, gallery and art collection specialist at Salt Lake Community College, felt he could do a few more exhibits to showcase more art.
“That’s kind of my goal, you know, to get people and artists in front of [other] people,” said Walton.
The Eccles gallery is open to the public Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Artists of all types get to be showcased in the gallery, enabling students and community members to experience the different worlds of art.
Each featured exhibit is up for an average of about five weeks. Currently, the Celebration Sor Juana/LatinArte can be viewed in the Eccles gallery, while Shawn Edrington’s “Blueprint For Ruin” is featured on the Edna Runswick Taylor Foyer LED exhibition wall.
Edrington’s exhibit “explores landscapes that bear the scars of human intervention, open-pit mines, deforested terrain, and ecologically fractured sites,” according to the slcc_eccles_art_gallery Instagram.
In collaboration with The Consulate of Mexico in Salt Lake City and Artes de Mexico en Utah, the LatinArte exhibit gives Latinx artists a spotlight and share their meaningful art to the local community.
While both exhibits are extremely different, they capture the artistic diversity that takes place at SLCC.
Currently in the Eccles gallery lies a piece by Carlos Arevalo that includes three photos named “Legado,” “Acuerdate de mi,” and “Peru en alto,” or “Legacy,” “Remember me,” and “Peru high” in English.
“My whole idea for this project is that I want to teach my daughter, my family, that we have to keep our roots. So I tried to grab people from different countries; I tried to reflect in the photography, our roots, where we came from, and how we provide to this city,” said Arevalo.
For Arevalo, photographs are so much more than just taking pictures. They tell stories. Stories of heritage, love and stories of where we come from and where we’ll go. These portrait type photographs are more of a passion for him than a job while photographing weddings, quinceañeras and food is what pays the bills.
Another piece on display in the Eccles gallery is Lucia De La Cruz’s “La luz que quedo, plegaria a los que parten” — or the English translation, “The Light That Remains, prayer for those who deport.” De La Cruz found inspiration for the work through her grandmother, who would guide family and community members through new paths and long journeys with prayer and a candle, symbolizing her support, love and acceptance of their departure.
“I remember, without words, she was teaching me how important it is to kind of be that company for the ones that are moving to a different place or having a long journey,” said De La Cruz. “Some of my members of my family had to immigrate to a different place to look for a better place and better things for their families and better quality of life.”
For De La Cruz, art has been around her for years, with her brother, Jose Pablo De La Cruz, also being featured in the Eccles gallery for a photo he took, titled “Woman of the Land.”
However, De La Cruz never fully explored her passions for art until she had to face the challenges of grief and discovered that art was that light at the end of the tunnel.
Both De La Cruz and Arevalo spoke about art almost as a type of magic, as if it brought spark back into their lives in a way they had ever experienced.
Featured artists decide whether to sell their work or not. While few pieces are sold, that is not Walton’s or the gallery’s main goal, since the gallery is not profit-based.
“My main goal is to support the local art community and the artists who study and teach and work at the college,” said Walton. “So, every time something sells, that’s a great thing because we’re putting money in artists’ pockets. That’s super important but it’s not the top goal.”
Walton’s ability to showcase countless artists each year helps him remain true to his and SLCC’s mission. Visit the SLCC exhibitions web page for more information.
