The Sun Valley Museum of Art (SVMoA) is delighted to unveil SNOW SHOW: Winter Now, a group exhibition coinciding with the 2025 World Cup Alpine Championships in Sun Valley.
This exhibition examines the past, present, and future of winter and snow sports through the lens of photography and video art.
Featuring artists Catherine Opie, Rob Reynolds, and Mungo Thomson, as well as two new bodies of work created with support from SVMoA by artists Sofía Jaramillo and Ryan Bonilla, the exhibition will run from January 24 to April 2, 2025, at SVMoA.
Courtney Gilbert, Assistant Director and Curator of SVMoA, emphasizes the timeliness of the exhibition: “Winter sports are an integral part of Sun Valley’s identity. Through these remarkable works, we hope to deepen the conversation around winter’s cultural and environmental significance and its past, present, and future, while celebrating the diversity of perspectives in snow sport art.”
Featured Artists
Catherine Opie
Catherine Opie has explored a wide range of subjects throughout her career, from the architecture of Los Angeles freeways to California surfers and abstract landscapes captured in National Parks. After a decade of regular visits to Norway, Opie created a new body of work during the winter of 2024. She describes these photographs as portraits of mountains—studies in the color blue and its myriad possibilities. For Opie, blue in this series becomes both a dialogue with the history of art and a reflection of collective mourning, a response to the profound transformations our planet is undergoing.
Rob Reynolds
Rob Reynolds’ short film, The Word for Weather is Knowledge, filmed in Arctic Greenland during the summer of 2019, explores the ever-shifting contours of the massive Jakobshavn Icefjord as billions of gallons of meltwater pour into the ocean from the Greenland ice sheet. A voiceover by a local boat driver, speaking in Kalaallisut (Western Greenlandic dialect), provides a deeply personal perspective on the ecological transformations reshaping the Arctic. The narration reveals a profound linguistic connection: in Inuktitut, the word for weather, knowledge, and spirit is the same—sila.
Reynolds’ large-scale painting A Fragile Absolute (after Bradford) draws inspiration from 19th-century painter William Bradford, who embarked on eight Arctic expeditions during the 1860s. Bradford’s paintings documented a polar landscape vastly different from the one Reynolds encountered a century and a half later, highlighting the stark contrasts wrought by time and climate change.
Mungo Thomson
Mungo Thomson’s Wall Calendars lightboxes begin with commercial calendar images of well-known mountains. Thomson reproduces the images at a large scale as if held up to the sun, allowing the reverse side of the page to show through. Printing on both sides of a sheet of fabric stretched over a lightbox, Thomson collages recto and verso of the calendar page with light—imposing the calendar grid of a single month onto a photograph of a 40-million-year-old mountain, setting the minutia of daily life into scale against geological time. Thomson invites viewers to consider the deep time of geochronology in contrast with the precarity of our contemporary moment.
Special Projects Supported by SVMoA
SVMoA’s commitment to fostering new artistic voices is evident in its collaboration with Sofía Jaramillo and Ryan Bonilla, who created compelling new works as part of the exhibition.
Sofía Jaramillo: A New Winter
Jaramillo, a Colombian American visual artist based in Idaho and Wyoming, reimagines the history of winter sports culture. Drawing on her personal connection to Sun Valley, where she was born and raised, and archival research from The Community Library’s Wood River Museum of History and Culture, Jaramillo challenges Eurocentric ideals of skiing’s origins. Her recreated photographs from the 1930s and 1940s spotlight people of color, encouraging broader representation in winter sports.
“A New Winter revisits early depictions of skiing and reimagines them to celebrate diversity,” Jaramillo shares. “By disrupting traditional narratives, we can expand our understanding of winter sports and their cultural evolution.”
Ryan Bonilla: Welcome to the Fridge
Artist and Burton NYC Ambassador Ryan Bonilla presents Welcome to the Fridge, an installation of Polaroid photographs taken at an indoor ski hill in New Jersey. His work envisions the future of snow sports in an era of climate change, showcasing urban and suburban athletes on manmade snow. Bonilla’s dynamic images capture young snowboarders mid-air against the backdrop of the facility’s industrial infrastructure, offering a glimpse into the evolving landscape of winter sports.
SNOW SHOW: Winter Now was curated by Courtney Gilbert, Assistant Director & Curator, Sun Valley Museum of Art, and Jennifer Wells Green, Executive Director.
ASSOCIATED PROGRAMS AND EVENTS
Thu, Jan 23
ARTIST TALK: Behind the Scenes—Sofía Jaramillo’s “A New Winter”
Sun Valley Opera House, 5:30pm
FREE, pre-registration recommended, space is limited.
Join artist Sofía Jaramillo and members of her production team for a conversation moderated by Suzanne Donaldson, former Senior Director Global Brand Creative Production at Nike. Learn about the behind-the-scenes production work that goes into Jaramillo’s photo shoots for “A New Winter”.
Made possible by Sun Valley Resort. Part of the exhibition SNOW SHOW: Winter Now
Fri, Jan 24
SVMOA Member Preview & Exhibition Tour
The Museum, 5–6pm
FREE to Members
The Museum’s curators invite SVMoA Members for a preview and exhibition tour of SNOW SHOW: Winter Now prior to the Opening Celebration.
Opening Celebration
The Museum, 6–7pm
FREE! Open to the community.
Join us for the Opening Celebration of SNOW SHOW: Winter Now.
Fri, Feb 7
ARTIST TALK: Rob Reynolds
Location TBA, 5:30pm
FREE, pre-registration recommended, space is limited.
Join Los Angeles-based artist Rob Reynolds for a talk about his work in painting, sculpture, video, sound, and augmented reality (AR). Reynolds will discuss his ongoing project, A Fragile Absolute, which emerges from extensive travels with earth scientists in the Arctic, and the making of his film The Word for Weather is Knowledge, filmed in Greenland in the summer of 2019.
Thu, Feb 27
ART CLUB: Conversations on Contemporary Art – Memory in the Work of Sofía Jaramillo and Rob Reynolds
The Museum, 5:30–6:30pm
FREE to members / $15 nonmembers
Join SVMoA for a series of conversations on Contemporary Art. At the February Art Club, we’ll discuss the different ways that artists Sofía Jaramillo and Rob Reynolds use memory, nostalgia, and change through time in their respective bodies of work.
Sat, Mar 1
TEEN WORKSHOP: Snow Sport Photography with Sofía Jaramillo
Rotarun, 11am-3pm
$20, pre-registration recommended, space is limited.
Middle and high school skiers and snowboarders are invited to join National Geographic photographer Sofía Jaramillo for a photography workshop focused on snow sports. Learn techniques for capturing the best photographs of skiers and snowboarders in action. The workshop will begin with an hour of instruction in the Rotarun Lodge before heading out onto the hill to practice photography techniques. Rotarun day passes will be provided.
Thu, Mar 6
ARTIST TALK: Catherine Opie
Location TBA, 5:30pm
FREE, pre-registration recommended, space is limited.
Join renowned Los Angeles-based photographer Catherine Opie for a conversation about her most recent project, portraits of mountains shot in Norway in the winter of 2024. One of the most influential photographers of her generation, Opie will discuss the project within the larger context of her career, which has included work on subjects ranging from Los Angeles’ freeway system to California surfers and portraits of members of the LGBTQ community.
Sat, Mar 8 & Sun, Mar 9
TEEN WORKSHOP: Snow Sport Video with Ryan Bonilla
Sat, Rotarun, 12-3pm; Sun, Hailey Classroom, 10am–12pm
$20, pre-registration recommended, space is limited
Middle and high school skiers and snowboarders are invited to join artist, designer, and Burton NYC Ambassador Ryan Bonilla for a day of video instruction on the mountain. Ryan will share tips for capturing the best footage possible of skiers and snowboarders in action. On Day 2 of the workshop, students will learn the basics for editing footage and creating standalone videos. Open to all Middle and High School students, no video experience required. Rotarun day passes will be provided.
Wed, Mar 19
ARTIST TALK: Into the Archives with Sofía Jaramillo
The Community Library, Ketchum, 5:30pm
Presented by SVMoA, The Community Library, and Ochi Gallery
FREE, pre-registration recommended, space is limited.
Join Sofía Jaramillo and staff from the Community Library for a conversation on the way that Jaramillo found inspiration in the Library’s archives, and the historic artifacts the Library and Wood River Museum of History and Culture made available for use in her project.
Presented by SVMoA, The Community Library, and Ochi Gallery.
Thu, Mar 20
APRÈS ARTIST TALK: Ryan Bonilla
The Museum, 4:30pm
FREE, pre-registration recommended, space is limited.
Join artist, designer, and Burton NYC Ambassador Ryan Bonilla for a conversation about his practice and his installation for Snow Show, Welcome to the Fridge, which includes hand-painted snowboards and hundreds of Polaroid photographs made at an indoor ski and snowboard hill in northern New Jersey.
Thu, Mar 27
ART CLUB: Conversations on Contemporary Art – Deep Time in the Work of Brad Johnson, Catherine Opie, and Mungo Thomson
The Museum, 5:30–6:30pm
FREE to members / $15 nonmembers
Join SVMoA for a series of conversations on Contemporary Art. At the March Art Club, we’ll discuss the different ways that artists Brad Johnson, Catherine Opie, and Mungo Thomson approach the idea of deep time in their practices.
About Sun Valley Museum of Art
The nonprofit Sun Valley Museum of Art (SVMoA) has nurtured curiosity, sparked conversation and engaged the Blaine County community since 1971. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, SVMoA reaches an annual audience of 40,000 with its mission to connect people to contemporary art and artists through exhibitions, education, programs, and projects. We welcome all, embrace curiosity and creativity, and believe in the power of art to link us to each other and to the larger world. SVMoA’s diverse programming includes visual arts exhibitions, lectures, concerts, classes, and performances. SVMoA enhances K-12 arts education in local schools with elementary school education, student exhibition tours, professional artist residencies, arts-based classroom enrichment projects, and student and teacher scholarships. To learn more about Sun Valley Museum of Art, explore upcoming events, become a member or get involved, visit svmoa.org.