“Path Into Pines” demonstrates at least two of the ways Utah painter Anne Becker plays with her medium. On the one hand, her material choice, “oil and cold wax,” might be described as neither fish nor fowl: it isn’t straight oil, nor is it encaustic: it has characteristics of both. Moreover, her approach takes advantage of all the freedoms of abstraction, such as primacy of color expression and impact over natural appearance or optical shading, and similarly the substitution of strongly suggestive forms for the familiar shapes of pine trees. Yet she produces a convincing feeling of depth, along with the way a grove of trees on the far side of a meadow may present like a wall: a resonant landscape to encounter from afar, but an alien challenge, full of foreboding for those who intend to enter or explore.

An even more remarkable encounter of nature and abstraction occurs in “Moonlit.” Here the foreground looks like snow, but with a blue very close to the color of the sky. Her audience presumably relishes the way a sky full of snow and what’s already on the ground can convey their common connection. Here the trees are a lumpy middle ground with the exception of those on the fringe closest to the viewer, which are picked out by the moon’s light so they emerge as silhouettes. All this sounds realistic, and it almost is, but only within a certain proximity to the geometric shapes and contrasting colors Becker chooses for their strong visual impacts.

Anne Becker, “Moonlit,” 36×36 in.

Anne Becker, “Brighton Spring,” 36×24 in.

Another discovery Becker has to share concerns just what part is realistic. The “spring” in “Brighton Spring” apparently refers neither to a place, nor a source of water. Rather, it designates the season. And sure enough, here we see a zone in the high country where the fast-melting snow remains mostly in the shadows, the shoulders of the mountains are bare, and the foliage is a symphony of greens. Nowhere is it written that abstract visuals cannot convey a completely real quality like the season.

Anne Becker, “Circles”

An intriguing distinction occurs between Becker’s flowers and what might be taken for her “capers” or frolics. The Globe Mallows and Elephant Heads could be torn scraps of colorful paper that earn their identities by repetition, but nearby are clever, ornamental circles that are called just that—“Circles”— and similar shapes titled “Be Yourself,” a suggestion that reverberates with their unique arrangements of similar, yet unique parts. With their references to patterns seen elsewhere, like stripes and polka-dots, which break up their otherwise flat appearance, their impulsive ideas, and even their occasional pencil scribbles, these fall as far from realism and into spontaneity as anything can. What we end up with, then, is a sensibility that knows how to paint, in several ways, but also someone who knows how to have fun with it.

What we’re faced with, then, is a progressive reduction of Anne Becker’s subjects that in no way diminishes their appeal. All art is abstract in various ways, but this artist goes beyond that to gift the viewer with a refreshingly original experience of essential qualities drawn from the surrounding world.

Douglas Smith and Anne Becker, 15th Street Gallery, Salt Lake City, through Mar. 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.