Each year, Utah’s governor honors three visual artists and three performance artists with the Governor's Mansion Artist Award. The College of Fine Arts is elated to share that V. Kim Martinez, Department of Art & Art History Chair, is one of the selected artists for 2021. Awardees were selected by Governor Spencer Cox and First Lady Abby Cox, from a group of nominees submitted by the Governor’s Mansion Artist Awards Committee.
“Receiving The Utah Governor’s Mansion Visual Artist Award is a reinforcement of my ideals of art as a vehicle for social change. Art has massive power to incite people to find connections to act on the challenges we face by identifying with one another across social, political, gender, and racial lines.”
-V. Kim Martinez
The 2021 award winners include:
- Ta’u Pupu’a, opera tenor
- Elsie Holiday, master Navajo basket weaver.
- Diane Stewart, owner of Modern West Fine Art, benefactor
- V. Kim Martinez, muralist, professor and community activist
- Jack Ashton, violinist, director of Young Artist Chamber Players, educator
- Camille and Alicia Washington, founders of Good Company Theatre
- Fidalis Beuhler, painter, professor
PBS Utah is producing a documentary series about the honored artists to air in the spring of 2022.
Here is a bit more about V. Kim Martinez, shared from the Governor's Mansion Artist Awards program: 