Artist: Kirsten Holt Beitler
Artist Bio: Kirsten Holt Beitler is a full-time artist creating both commercial and fine art. She paints expressive figurative and portrait-based work, drawing from the visual language of pop culture, typography, and kitsch. Whether painting for Harmons Grocery or working in her studio, her focus remains on the deeply human—capturing how life’s experiences etch themselves onto the face and body.
Kirsten’s paintings often explore the tension between public persona and private reality, particularly in the age of the selfie. Her work highlights how humor, nostalgia, and vulnerability coexist in our digital image culture. She aims to create pieces that are accessible, beautiful, emotionally resonant, and unafraid to challenge or amuse.
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Artwork 1 Information:
Title: Icon of the Honeybee I (Gatherer of Zion) (0080)
Medium: Acrylic and gold leaf
Dimensions: 3 ½ x 2 inches
Price: $80
Artist Statement: This piece depicts a honeybee, the state insect of Utah, hovering above a beehive, a symbol representing industriousness, which can be turned into an idol if not balanced by empathy and rest.
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Artwork 2:
Title: Icon of the Honeybee II (The Divine Messenger) (0081)
Medium: Acrylic and gold leaf
Dimensions: 2 x 3 ½ inches
Price: $80
Artist Statement: The honeybee is a divine messenger. This piece continues the theme of sacred natural symbols, portraying the bee not just as a worker, but as an integral and holy part of the natural world.
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Artwork 3 Information:
Title: Icon of the Jackalope I (The Sentinel of Zion) (0082)
Medium: Acrylic and gold leaf
Dimensions: 2 x 3 ½ inches
Price: $80
Artist Statement: The mythical jackalope brings a sense of watchfulness and reverence. She is a guardian of the natural landscape of Utah, which many residents hold sacred in word, but not in deed, as is shown by the people they elect who want to sell Utah to the highest bidder. She is surrounded by endangered Bearclaw Poppies.
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Artwork 4 Information:
Title: Icon of the Jackalope II (Guardian of Myth) (0083)
Medium: Acrylic and gold leaf
Dimensions: 2 x 3 ½ inches
Price: $80
Artist Statement: This piece transforms a folk-tale creature into a powerful symbol, blending the playful nature of the jackalope myth with the serious reverence of a religious icon.
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Artwork 5 Information:
Title: Icon of the Gull I (Cricket Deliverance) (0084)
Medium: Acrylic and gold leaf
Dimensions: 3 ½ x 2 inches
Price: $80
Artist Statement: In this icon, the California gull—the unsung savior of early Mormon pioneers—is canonized in radiant gold, a divine agent bearing the cricket, both pest and providence. Stylized like a Byzantine saint, the gull is not merely a bird, but a vessel of ecological grace, transforming a survival story into a state-sanctioned miracle.
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Artwork 6:
Title: Icon of the Gull II (Cricket Deliverance) (0085)
Medium: Acrylic and gold leaf
Dimensions: 3 ½ x 2 inches
Price: $80
Artist Statement: With its beak closed gently around a cricket, this gull reminds us that salvation often arrives through unassuming means. This piece reinterprets the iconic Seagull Monument of Salt Lake City, offering reverence not to empire, but to interspecies alliance.
