Rebecca Klundt, “Home Making,” 48 x 48 in.

“Apologia” is a technical term that, while related to “apology,” actually means “explanation.” The connection is historical, since an explanation functions like an apology, in clarifying why something is different from what’s expected. On her website, Rebecca Klundt offers an elaborate “apologia” for her work, which she puckishly describes in terms not of art, but of “piles”—piles of scrap wood that she assembles into tall, thin piles that save space by fitting against the wall. In other words, she means the familiar, mosaic-like paintings that are currently conserving space on the walls of David Ericson’s light-filled, domestically cozy gallery in the Avenues.

In their most elemental form, Klundt’s objects are indeed mosaics, a sophisticated form of abstraction in which the character of the separate tiles—sometimes found objects and often chosen for their individual characters—lead the eye through an adventure. Klundt narrates several such experiences on her website. More recently, though, she’s allowed her extensive arrangement of wooden tiles to depict appropriate visual subjects. In “Easter Morning,” they predominantly stand in for the stone walls, presumably of Jerusalem, through an arch in which a stylized Savior appears. While various shades of gray paint depict the stones, and are particularly effective in creating a 3-D illusion in the steps on which the figure stands, it’s the tiles seen through the arch, which shade like dawn, from warm red up to cool yellow, that bring the scene to vivid life.

Rebecca Klundt, “Delicate Arch”

A local icon, “Delicate Arch” further advances her discovery that although wood is physically lighter than stone, horizontal, cubical shapes stack up in ways that invoke gravity, weight, and stability. The real Delicate Arch is made of solid stone, not ashlars, but Klundt’s version resembles and invokes its geologic layers, as well as the ruins of the Classical Era that have survived, if not for millions of years, still longer than most of what the ancients built.

Arches are a major theme here, and the stony surfaces produced by using wooden blocks of different thickness lend supposed stone a surprisingly life-like effect. The emotional impact serves effectively in “Home Making,” a quilt-like arrangement of ten times ten, or one hundred similar blocks, each containing a simple gable-topped, house-shaped tile, featureless but for a front door in a sympathetic color. In a very different work, a seascape of five sailboats titled “Fathers Who Come Before,’ wide, thin tiles alternately representing both the water’s surface and the sail’s reflections produce a dappled and animated-looking sea.

Rebecca Klundt, “Play In Again”

A sophisticated example of choosing specific tiles for their looks, “Play In Again” uses salvaged piano keyboard parts amid slender tiles set vertically to invoke the color and movement of piano music. It also foregrounds the shadows many of these pieces cast on the wall, which become part of the complete work.

Like pianos, chairs often appear in various scenes where they, too, excite a response that may be felt rather than understood. Klundt argues that the significance of chairs stems from their having been reserved in the past for kings and judges: figures whose seated posture, while others stood, was symbolic of their status. Ordinary people, she says, were usually left to stand or perch on whatever they could find. There’s something in what she says, since having a seat is still often a sign of privilege. Two of her works here depict chairs, and one is almost surely the standout work in the show. “Sweet On,” a title that denotes affection and suggests “en suite,” depicts two straight-back chairs, one ever-so-slightly taller than the other, which lean almost imperceptibly together. The other, a lone chair pressed into service as a bookshelf, is titled “The Student.” Either work successfully invokes a symbolic figure study, while together they demonstrate just how much Rebecca Klundt’s artworks are capable of expressing the human condition, lived experiences, and an entire range of feelings.

Rebecca Klundt, “Sweet On,” 48 x 32 in.

Rebecca Klundt & Linda Etherington, David Ericson Fine Art, Salt Lake City, through Apr. 13

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.