Olympus High Titan London Nielsen won big at the Springville Museum of Art 52nd Annual Utah All-State High School Art Show. The show was established to recognize the best high school artists in the state for their talent, originality and skill. The exhibition included 1,064 entries reviewed for a final selection of 326 works representing 102 Utah high schools. Neilsen walked away with a Plein Air Painters of Utah Award, a Midway Art Association Materials Award, a Utah Senate Visual Arts Award, and a First Congressional District Award for her oil painting “Sophie’s Beach.”

Nielsen has been selected by the Holladay Arts Council as Holladay Artist of the Month for January 2025 in recognition of her talent and skill as a Realism landscape artist.

It was in elementary school that Nielsen first discovered her passion for art. Crestview Elementary School, in the Granite School District, offered an art program called "Meet the Masters" to the students. Through engaging, hands-on lessons about various master artists, Nielsen found artistic inspiration in the mesmerizing world of Vincent Van Gogh.

“I love to paint landscapes. I’ve painted portraits, animals and flowers, but I love landscape the most,” Nielsen said. “I’ve studied art with Sydney Bowman for nine years. I started off with pencil and then moved to pen, Prisma color, water color, pastel, acrylic and then to oil. When I’m working on a painting, I usually paint a base of acrylic to get the colors down and then I will use oils to glaze it and make those final touches. I’m a Realism painter, but I like to add a touch of Impressionism to my art as well.”

When Nielsen isn’t painting, she enjoys competing on the high school soccer and track teams at Olympus. After high school, she plans to attend Brigham Young University or the University of Utah. She hopes to major in sports medicine and athletic training with a minor in art. 

“Right now, I'm working toward an art scholarship,” Nielson said. “I've been taking an Advanced Placement 2-Dimensional art class at Olympus. For my 'Sustained Investigation,' project I have focused on a single theme: the beach. Specifically, I incorporated the perspectives of others about the beach. My friends sent me their beach photos, and I painted them based on their viewpoints. In the last half of the year, I used some personal beach photos that were important to me to create my paintings.”

When asked how she knows when she has met with success as an artist, she says, “I’m a perfectionist. I’ll look at a painting and ask is it done? Or is something missing? There is always more to think about and always more to add. I’ve done a couple of commissions. One was a painting of a sunset. The photo of the sunset really had a special meaning for a particular moment in this person's life. When he first saw the painting, I had painted for him from the photo, it brought tears to his eyes because he was so emotionally touched and happy. It really showed me how valuable my artwork is to people.”

Nielsen is honored to serve as the high school artist liaison for the Holladay Arts Council. She finds the creative aspect of art an outlet for self-expression, capturing the world's beauty on canvas in the present moment. At the health food eatery where she works, customers frequently comment on her smoothie bowl creations and say, "Oh, this is so beautiful. You must be an artist."

Nielsen’s artwork will be on display at Holladay City Hall (4580 S. 2300 East) through January.

To nominate a Holladay resident for Artist of the Month, visit www.holladayarts.org/suggest-an-artist. λ