Installation view of Lizzie Wenger’s recent work at A Gallery. Her paintings blend geological structure with emotional and symbolic color, offering a contemporary vision of the West.

On any given day, galleries are better able than museums to show artists in depth, so that the subjects and treatments each prefers can be clearly seen. Sometimes a single venue places two such artists side-by-side, allowing useful comparisons, and at other times it’s necessary to travel between two locations to see different approaches. That latter case currently finds two radically different ways of painting the landscape. At David Ericson, from now until May 12th, recent gems by veteran Russell Case are featured, while at ‘A’ Gallery, self-taught and exciting newcomer Lizzie Wenger will be in place until May 16th.

While there will be no confusion between these two styles of landscape, a bit of academic jargon, which is otherwise worth avoiding, may actually help clarify just what their differences signify. Writing students are often urged to “show, not tell”—in other words, demonstrate information directly through details and events rather than just state their conclusions. In actual practice, of course, both approaches are equally effective, and good writers will choose both at one time or another. While this may also be true in painting, artists may prefer one or the other habitually, and this becomes part of their signature style.

Russell Case characteristically “shows” his subject, and how he does this marks him as one of the finer landscape painters we have. His form of optical realism begins not, as is so often the case, with a photograph that he brings back to the studio, but with a study begun on site, more or less the size of a sheet of printer paper, on which he has sketched the scene he observed in person. Instead of trying to transfer this directly to the canvas, he first reworks it for the most satisfying balance of light and dark, natural colors, and overall painterly effects. As this takes shape on the canvas, he will add or remove details that befit the scene, sometimes including one or more indigenous inhabitants who populate his scene and bring it to life. Two anonymous travelers on horseback is close to a signature addition.

Russell Case, “Kaibab Hills.”

Lizzie Wenger, “There is Still Light Ahead.”

Lizzie Wenger’s approach could hardly be more distinct. She “tells” the viewer about the land she wishes to share, generally using saturated colors and making extensive use of linear drawing and exaggerated shadows. Among the things she lets us know in a work like “Turning to the Sun” are the fact that we are seeing bare rocks, which were laid down in horizontal layers over millions of years, and, once exposed, cracked by erosion into vertical columns. Students of geology will recognize the qualities that allow layers of harder stone to determine how the softer layers beneath withstand weathering to create cliffs, towers, and other well-known features. At the bottom of these heights, fallen away materials produce characteristic bases and fans of scree that, in a wetter climate would eventually become the dirt slopes and rounded forms that will be covered by trees, shrubs, and grasses. Wenger often includes substantial quantities of such plant life, usually growing down in the canyons below, to which she often gives a comparatively sinuous shape reminiscent of the paintings of Vincent van Gogh and other modern painters. One of the occasional effects of her styling is the suggesting of flames, as though the land were on fire, encouraging association with the heat of the desert.

Another difference between the two has to do with their handling of astronomical phenomena. In “Dust and Sage,” and again in “Timponeke Trail,” Case includes what appears to be the moon hanging low in the sky. Due to its proximity to the horizon, which suggests to our eyes that it is farther away and so must be bigger, the low moon appears larger than it actually is. In reality, a dime ten feet from the eye just covers it, while if measured accurately it would be slightly larger at its apex than down where he shows it. So Case is showing us what it looks like. In numerous canvases, including “Inyo,” “When the Trout Jump,” “Dance of the Dolores,” and “Noon in the Swell,” Wenger includes the sun or moon with a more accurate, which is to say smaller diameter. While she tends to place it higher in the sky, which would reduce the illusion of its looming size, she does seem to have more accurately taken its true measure.

Russell Case, “Dust and Sage.”

That’s not to say that Wenger is the more scientific. All true knowledge comes from observation, and Case, in painting what he sees, captures landscape and sky more accurately. Time after time, he shows the way it can be raining up high, while near the ground the desert is dry and even sunny. In her delightful “Remember the Rain,” on the other hand, Wenger shows a Christmas star in a streaming-clouded sky. This is visual storytelling at its most apparent. In fact, her version is more personally creative, more playful, vivid and colorful: a tall tale and a performance that engages the imagination. And her accurate depiction of the rock terrain when the sun is as close to overhead as it can be at this latitude, when the shadows have been routed, is called “High Noon”—a title fit for a Western adventure novel or motion picture drama.

You might say that Case approaches his subject with greater respect. Which approach a viewer prefers is a personal choice. For example, I cannot insert myself in a Lizzie Wenger landscape, as inviting as it indisputably is. I can admire it, and for me, hers is the song of the West, and I thrill to the music. On the other hand, I factually dwell in Russell Case’s West, which often shimmers like a mirage between me and the actual land: a place that has many moods—not all of them so noble or mythic—and so his recollection in turn reminds me of those moments I believe it is most like itself.

Fortunately, none of us has to choose.

Lizzie Wenger, “Turning to the Sun.”

G. Russell Case, David Ericson Fine Art, Salt Lake City, through May 12.

Lizzie Wenger, ‘A’ Gallery, Salt Lake City, through May 16.

All images courtesy of the author.

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.