Faculty Artists on Display at the 2025 President's Art Show

Every year, the President's Art Show showcases Utah artists, from the statewide to the local — and what could be more local than our own faculty? This year, four staff or faculty members are included in the 98 professional and amateur artists showcasing their skills as part of the exhibit. We're doing our own showcasing by introducing you to Jeanette Lukens and Tyler Smith, two Bruin faculty members whose submissions were selected for display at the 31st edition of the President's Art Show.

The President's Art Show is open to the public from November 6 - 18 in the Multipurpose Room at South City Campus. To learn more about the show, click this link.

Jeanette Lukens

Canyonlands, 2025
Woodcut reduction block print (printmakers ink on Stonehenge cold-press paper)
10 x 30 inches

Like so many other artists, SLCC professor Jeanette Lukens was first exposed to her craft in undergrad, when she did some woodcuts while taking courses in printmaking. That experience left an indelible imprint on her — she didn't do anything else with woodcut until two decades later. "About four years ago, I decided to jump back in," she says. "I really love the carving process and the unique look of woodcuts."

The idea of translating natural landscapes, like the one depicted in "Canyonlands," into artwork is almost perfectly aligned with Lukens' academic and professional work. She studied geography and environmental policy before serving as an advisor on public-lands policy in the US senate. At SLCC, her work in geography foregrounds human activity as part of an interconnected geographic system.

"One of my goals in those classes is to help students catch a vision of the beauty and variety in the world, whether it be cultures, biomes, species, or landscapes," she explains. In just 30 inches of ink and paper, her submission to PAS25 embodies almost all of those themes — or, as she puts it: "This piece is a reminder to viewers of the beautiful places we have in this state," and she hopes that it invokes memories of their own experiences in national parks.

Given the nature of her teaching, it's no surprise that Lukens is a strong proponent of those parks. "I love unique and beautiful geography," she says, specifically highlighting the southwestern landscape that inspired her submission. That particular piece was made after a trip to Canyonlands for her son's 11th birthday. While corresponding for this article, Lukens and her family were on the road again, exploring Rocky Mountain National Park, where she confirmed that she's "taking lots of photos for inspiration."

Tyler Smith

The Spark That Bled, 2025
Collage (cut paper on foam core)
16 x 12 inches

Making movies doesn't involve much actual film anymore, or, as Tyler Smith puts it, "I've experienced my profession moving from an analog to a digital environment." Smith is an associate professor teaching film and communications at SLCC, and though he acknowledges that "Every aspect of filmmaking does involve technology," he also says that composition and storytelling aren't as affected. With his mixed media and collage work, Smith explores those elements through a new medium — one that he says "is usually a relief" from the structures, standards, and technologies of film.

Smith's background in collage is all about exploration outside of structure. He has no formal training, so he developed his technique organically, letting his process shape itself. He "starts with significant images" that he then manually resizes (read: cuts up) into tiny pieces of paper. "Over time," he says of the decade-plus that he's been working in collage, "the pieces got smaller and smaller," and those smaller pieces became vehicles to explore composition and storytelling through color and texture.

The original images are, of course, lost to the viewer, but Smith still understands their significance, even if he's reticent with the details. "This imagery of 'The Spark That Bled' is a profound metaphor for a small, seemingly insignificant moment turning into something serious or painful," he says. The title provides more interpretative signposting; it's a song by The Flaming Lips song, and Smith says it "symbolizes the painful, sometimes tragic loss of potential or hope."

He also points out that, like much of The Flaming Lips' oeuvre, the meaning of "The Spark That Bled" is open to interpretation. It's easy to see how that quality is appropriate for his abstract collage work, and the way he describes the piece's relation to its namesake song is equal parts professorial and artistic with a final note of buoyant, insistent optimism. "Key themes revolve around dealing with life's unexpected tragedies and finding strength in adversity through courage, hope, perseverance, and LOVE!"