This month, David Ericson Fine Art once again presents two artists whose differing styles highlight the breadth of contrast encompassed by today’s art. While a former professor like me wants to see this as a teaching opportunity, Dave Ericson insists that the arrangement is practical. Alternating the still-life inflected, confectioeary delights of Linda Etherington with the Group f.64-style landscapes of David Meikle is like serving dessert in the middle of a savory dinner—in this case, refreshing the optical palate that might otherwise find too much of one thing, even if it is a good thing.

One thing the gallerist or even the artist herself probably can’t show you during the opening is the back of a painting. For that, you have to come in during the week, whereupon Dave Ericson may well delight in taking an Etherington off the wall in order to turn it over. If you’ve ever wondered how the titles of art works survive the loss of those fragile cards that grace the walls during the exhibition, one way it happens is that the artist will write the title on the back. They may also sign them there and even add a thumbprint in permanent ink. In Etherington’s case, this is when the true title is revealed, which may be a whole sentence on its way to becoming a poem or short story. “Sweet Pea Gentle” turns out to be the public face of “Sweet Peas Watch Intently Nature’s Gentle Doings,” which the painter has written in flowing script on the back of the panel. But the reveal isn’t done there, because Ericson flips the work back over and searches the front until he finds those words concealed or floating among the various parts of the image.

The verso of Linda Etherington’s “Sweet Peas.”

Linda Etherington, “Give Hope,” 26×48 in.

Sometimes a whole word can be easily found. In “Give Hope,” where a likely mother and daughter pose for their portrait with birds, butterflies, and flowers, “Give” is fairly prominent, while the individual letters of “Hope” appear in sequence, yes, but spread about and blended in or placed to be overlooked. And there’s more: “listen,” “Stand,” and “Friend” appear among the petals and feathers. Presumably these lines are either secret pleasures meant to belong to the painting’s owner, or opportunities to share with whichever friends she chooses. To be sure, there are probably those who would dismiss this kind of play, thinking art has serious work to do. But in this case, it’s not play and work that are opposed: it’s play and reality. All art is play, every bit as much as a leaf being stalked by a kitten is make-believe prey, and playing with or against reality is one of the most important things we sentient beings ever do.

Words floating alongside her subjects are only one of the original ways Etherington plays in her art. There is also the contrast between her predominantly pastel color scheme and the brushstrokes of intense color that form the borders of things she depicts, or comment on them by responding to their shapes. Sometimes she draws a hard line around each object. At others, she may fashion a band of color, or colors and designs, around her figures. In “Give Hope” she does both. While both her figures and their grounds often appear flat, these daubs of deeper tints lend a feeling of depth, for instance by making the object or person they surround seem to pop out of the background they separate it from. Etherington has said she fills her panels with birds because in life their presence is so fleeting: gone in an instant. She might add that flowers tend to be present only a little longer. Even the status of mother and child can only be described as temporary. What Linda Etherington gives us in her active and happy scenes is the essence of still life: a pause that lets us hold and keep moments of pure pleasure to lift our hearts.

David Meikle comes across as nothing less than a landscape magician, and so it came as no surprise that there was a lot of talk, both in print and in the gallery, about how he paints. I thought it was mostly wide of the mark. What interested me was his comment that instead of a sketchbook, what he carries in the field is a camera. And while that may help explain the wonderful level of detail he achieves, it suggests something more important.

David Meikle, “Smithfield Evening,” 24×30 in.

I’ve often said that one of the greatest pleasures in paint comes with viewing the work from different places. After all, there are things to be seen up close but not from a distance, and things seen at a distance that disappear on approach. The totality, and in particular the overall composition, requires distance—and let’s not forget that distance is a crucial part of landscape. Looking at a Meikle from across the room, it looks nothing like a painting. Instead, it looks more like a photograph, and not just any photograph: it strongly resembles a camera-landscape from the first generation of photographers—Americans, by the way—who set out to conclusively prove that a photograph can be a work of art on its own terms. Among them were the members of Group f.64, the most celebrated and determined of which was Ansel Adams.

It was Adams, for instance, who chose to shoot through a filter that changed the blank, light-filled, and so white sky to black, bringing out the clouds that gave his mountains and wild places the dramatic feeling they’ve had ever since. Of course Adams was working in black and white, and Meikle can paint his skies blue, but he so often aims his brush well above the land in order to include as much of the sky as possible. In one pair at David Ericson’s, the same Joshua Tree is seen from slightly different angles, but more significantly, the distant hills are seen lit from the front in one and from behind in the other, with two entirely different, but equally compelling effects.

But the resemblance to photos is only the first act of Meikle’s magic. As viewers move closer, perhaps to take in the detail hinted at from afar, the anticipated, printed surface never appears, and instead the familiar texture of brush strokes and blended oil appears. It’s must be said that for many viewers, this sequence may take place below conscious perception, but even after seeing the work up close, it can only continue to belong to two different schools of art at two different distances, each of which will profit from the presence of the other.

David Meikle’s “Valley of the Gods” and “Cache Valley Sunset”

Of course, many artists have taken advantage of the occasional colorful sunrise and far more common spectacular sunsets of the Southwest, but here, too, Meikle has an ace up his sleeve. Space and distance are keys to many of the topographic effects of the Western landscape, and one way to maximize them is to reproduce the exaggerated atmospheric perspective produced by vast distances, dust, interaction with sunlight, and other elements, all of which are among Meikle’s strong preferences. We have only to compare his “Valley of the Gods” with his “Cache Valley Sunset” to see how such specifics as the hour of the day and the rain falling—but never landing because it evaporates as it approaches the hot valley floor—change the sharp focus of one into the murky, yet luminous depths of the other.

I am not claiming that David Meikle consciously chose to mimic the history of Western photography in his painting. I do maintain, however, that those images are universally familiar by now, and that each artist makes uncounted choices from what they see and even, at times, from what they spontaneously produce through their own experiments. Thanks to David Ericson, we have the chance to see the very different choices Linda Etherington and David Meikle have made, and to consciously experience the different and contrasting effects those choices have on our ever-expanding pleasure, both in what we see in the gallery, and in what we find for ourselves outside.

David Meikle, “Joshua Tree Twilight,” 24×24 in.

David Meikel and 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.