Desert scenes, like this one in Don Miskin’s “Plateau Light,” are a highlight of the Sear’s annual invitational exhibit

All the state’s big annual shows – the statewides and the invitationals – have their own personalities. Springville’s Spring Salon is as different from UDAM’s Statewide Annual as each is from the Eccles’ Black and White show. Personality is partly a matter of geography (art can be expensive and difficult to haul), partly selection bias (each curator or juror has their own tastes) and partly a matter of the history and vibe of each exhibition. The Sears Museum’s big show, their 35th-annual invitational now up in St. George, has developed its own personality: a bright representation of its cultural milieu.

Hung salon style, and with multiple temporary walls in the museum’s central space increasing the display, the Sears’ presentation is not the chic, minimal kind you’ll see at UDAM’s statewide annual — but as good as UDAM’s show can look, it often suffers from presenting too few artists; by contrast, there are plenty of artists here in St. George.

Take a 360-degree turn around the gallery and it might feel like you’re doing a slow spin outside on the Dixie State – er, Utah Tech – campus, looking at the dramatic landscape that surrounds you. There are lots of desert and redrock scenes, both by the locals who view it every day, like Brad Holt, Carol Bold, Roland Lee, Spike Ress and Royden Card, and those coming from further afield, including Simon Winegar, Bonnie Posselli, Frank Huff, Michelle Condrat and Martin Blundell (the 2022 Purchase Prize winner). “Landscapes sell” used to be a common refrain in Utah art circles, but go to most galleries along the Wasatch Front today and you won’t be struck by a preponderance of landscape paintings. Here you will be, and they are not all from the desert country: Artists like Karl Thomas, Natalie Shupe, Don Miskin, Bonnie Frucci and Larry Winborg have contributed striking scenes from higher altitude locations.

An example of the variety of sizes, styles and motifs of the landscape paintings at the Sears 35th-annual invitational exhibition, featuring, from left, Simon Winegar’s “From the Top,” Karl Thomas’ “Fall Above Aspen Grove,” and Del Parson’s “Pine Valley Mountain”

During your visual spin outside the Sears, you’ll likely catch a sight of the St. George Temple; inside you’ll find a smattering of religious art (something usually reserved, in exhibition circles, for Springville’s annual “Spiritual and Religious” show). Del Parson’s and Dilleen May Marsh’s paintings of a ministering Jesus would find themselves at ease on the cover of a religious publication or in the foyer in most traditional Christian churches in America. On the other hand, Julie Rogers’ energetic pastel of a celebratory, newly-fecund Sarah might be a bit too joyous and jazzy for some. Other works, like Marsh’s “How We Survive is a Choice” or Ron Richmond’s “Evening (No. 8),” approach some of the same subjects from a more symbolic context.

“The Apple of Her Eye” by Bonnie Conrad

Though St. George, as well as surrounding communities like Santa Clara, Hurricane and Washington, is becoming increasingly filled by housing developments, there is not much evidence of it in these works: the artists prefer a pristine or historic west to any representation of the “new west.” Plenty of works here, from Glen Edwards and Barbara Summers Edwards’ ranchers to Bonnie Conrad’s apple pickers, evoke a rural and western ethos. Where shuttle buses now run, Rick Kinateder has painted cowboys herding Longhorns beneath the towering peaks of Zion; and where mountain bikers are now likely to roam, Lynn Smith Griffin has painted a buffalo hunter. There are couple of exceptions to this pervading sense of nostalgia: Bonnie Zahn Griffith’s painting of boaters on a river and Kristi Grussendork’s hikers in a slot canyon — just as idyllic as the others, but contemporary idyllic.

St. George is our state’s winter playground (which is nothing new: Brigham Young was the original snowbird) and a welcome sense of visual play appears sporadically throughout the exhibit. McGarren Flack’s large frosted cupcake, the surface play in Dianne J. Adams’ paintings, even Sophie Soprano’s over-the-top painting of whales, dolphins, children and dogs playing in the surf, provide a respite from works that, as accomplished as they may be, tend toward the homogenous.

Matt Clark’s “Sentinel” stands in front of works by Martin Blundell and Dilleen May Marsh

What you won’t find in this exhibition is much non-objective work — at least on the walls. Mollie Hosmer-Dillard’s pair of rhythmic “landscape” works and Sue Cotter’s assemblage “Jasper, Bob and Me” (unfortunately hung on a small, side wall) constitute about the only 2-D abstract motifs in the whole exhibition. By contrast, the non-objective and abstract abound in the sculpture section, by the likes of Matt Clark, Dan Toon and Ryan Adams. Ceramics and glass are also allowed to play with formal elements without having to use them to represent anything. What you definitely won’t find are contemporary, 21st-century idioms, the type of things coming out of most of our universities. Admittedly, even these cutting-edge idioms, will, eventually, tend towards sameness, toward becoming genres; at the Sears, the genres you’ll find are ones that have been going on for centuries, things like the floral and still life (look for Richard D. Brown, Sally O’Neill and Carlene Reeves) or wildlife art (of which Lisa Huber’s “Tonaquint Park Peacock” is a refreshing example).

The competitive statewide shows like the Spring Salon or UDAM’s Statewide Annual might be for artists looking to make their careers, to break onto the scene: the hosting institutions issue open calls-for-entires so anyone can try their hand. The advantage of an invitational like the Sears is we get to see artists who are at the point that they might not bother with the call-for-entries. Artists like A.D. Shaw, who retired to Duchesne County, or Arlene Braithwaite, a grande dame of Cedar City’s art community, aren’t busy trying to fill up their CVs, but they hold a place in many art lovers’ hearts and these shows give us a chance to see their work.

Though Ron Larson’s “Dawn at Bryce Canyon” is large enough to fill up an entire wall, most of the work at the 35th Annual Robert and Peggy Sears Dixie Invitational is medium- to small-sized — things that could easily fit into the average home. “I guess you have to ask yourself, what would you hang in your house?” is what one patron was overheard saying at the opening of the exhibit. Which is a totally valid criteria for art: as David Salle has said, the first function of art is to look good on a wall. Even if we might all agree on Salle’s point on function, we would likely disagree on the “good” part. The Sears, at least, gives us one community’s answer.

35th Annual Robert and Peggy Sears Dixie Invitational, Sears Art Museum, St. George, through Apr. 2

Shawn Rossiter

The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.