Female + Form exhibit enters final month at Utah State

With less than a month to go before it closes, the Utah State University Caine College of the Arts is pushing for students and members of the community to attend the “Female + Form” exhibit at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.

The aim of the exhibit is to show artwork done by various women, and also contribute to a larger goal of increasing recognition of female artists.

“They will learn a lot about female artists and see a wide range of artistic styles,” said Casey Allen, the museum’s registrar. “They’ll learn how women’s rights are displayed through the arts. They will also get different ideas about how female artists work.”

Deborah Banerjee, the former curator of exhibitions and programs at the museum, created the exhibit to counteract the underrepresentation of female artists in museums. “She wanted the exhibit to be focused on women artists and how they address different kinds of women issues through their artwork,” Allen said.

“We want to show students that they can come here and learn,” said Katie Lee Koven, the museum’s director. “Our primary goal is to provide learning opportunities through art exhibits and this exhibit in particular tells a great story about women’s rights.”

Koven has only been at USU for a month, but said she is already excited about the future of the museum.

“My hope is we can expand and improve on the learning opportunities,” Koven said. “This is a great start in the right direction and by having a collection from the 20th and 21st century, we get to tell the story of artists from a different generation.”

The Female + Form exhibit, along with the rest of the museum, showcases modern and contemporary art pieces, which Allen said is a positive thing for the university.

“The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art is the only museum in the state of Utah dedicated mainly to collecting and showing modern and contemporary work,” Allen said. “That is a real homerun for our museum.” 

Madison Smith, Madeleine Bramhall, Natalie Nix, Torrey Green, Morgan Poulsen and Diego Mendiola contributed to this report.