God To Go West examines the contemporary landscape and identity of Utah in relationship to the state’s religious history. Photographs from this exhibition were recently produced for, and exhibited at the 2019 Center for Latter-day Saint Arts Festival at the Italian Academy of Columbia University in New York City. For more information on the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, visit www.centerforlatterdaysaintarts.org

“For this project, I am photographing in locations that were given religious names by early Mormon settlers. After their arrival to the area in the mid-1800’s, these individuals named more places and geographic features than any other group or people. Names have the ability to mediate qualities and meaning attached to a place, and are a vital part of individual and collective memory and identity. With these photographs, I am exploring the physical environment and how it acts as an indicator of shared and personal identity created by language, religion, history, and social experience.”

Daniel George is a photographic artist whose work is rooted in the medium’s documentary tradition and explores the interconnection of place and culture as it relates to communal and personal identity. Having lived as a transplant in various locations throughout his adult life, he uses the camera to study defining characteristics of the communities within which he resides. The resulting photographs are his attempt to visualize and understand the idiosyncrasies of human activity in these local cultures.

Daniel’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the United States, and has been published internationally in both print and online publications. His work has been acquired into several permanent collections, including the State of Utah Alice Merrill Horne Collection, the Rare Books Collection at the J. Willard Marriott Library of the University of Utah, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Snow College Karen H. Huntsman Library Special Collections, the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art of the Utah State University, the Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah Archives and Special Collections at Jen Library, the Brigham Young University-Idaho Department of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Daniel received a BFA in photography from Brigham Young University-Idaho, and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. He is currently based out of Vineyard, UT where he teaches photography at nearby Brigham Young University.

Visit Daniel’s website for additional works.