“The Creative Collective”: as much a celebration of a new generation of artists as it was a gallery. Each artist brought their own style to the warehouse, filling it with personalized messages through a wide array of mediums. Family and friends filled the audience for the one-day opening and closing event Friday, March 10.

Although the collection was only there for a few hours, experiencing the art felt like stepping into Andy Warhol’s Factory, the famous artist’s New York City studio. Bright lights reflect off of white walls, drawing the eye to the Polaroids carefully tacked up and spread across tables and the paintings aligned in rows and columns of three next to skateboards decorated with well known characters.  Art with similar themes and messages were in placed the same room to keep everything cohesive and easily draw viewers of all ages through each work; while the two-dimensional art took the stage on the lower floor, the textured art and twinkle lights found a home upstairs while softened covers of popular songs played over speakers until Mark Swink came to perform.

Curtis Hendrickson, studying Fine Arts at the University of Utah, does work that explores what has become normal or stigmatized through science fiction. Many of his pieces featured robots in the every day or pills dissolving in liquid. Because he chose the light-hearted robots, his pieces on what addiction means stood out on his table and created a balance between the every day and a darker aspect of the human condition. Nick Baker’s pieces focused on the passion of a moment, which shines through his photograph of an elderly man he met once in a coffee shop. Using copic markers to layer black, grey, and white he highlighted his subjects; while the combination of the delicate and durable aspects of nature in his art added grace to paintings of an elephant with a spray of crystals across an ear and an octopus twining tentacles around a lightbulb.

The gallery displayed more than paintings and photographs. Kelly Lotz runs a small business and presented several pieces from her shop. After digging for vintage televisions, she explored video arts and pulled daisies and other photos from static on the screen. She wanted to explore girl power and self expression, so Lotz gave vintage clothes modern twists by distressing sleeves and adding patches to make fur coats and bomber jackets androgynous. Interacting with her art was overall an interesting experience.