{"id":35362,"date":"2018-08-21T22:35:43","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T04:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=35362"},"modified":"2018-10-04T10:16:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T16:16:28","slug":"leslie-thomas-and-mark-knudsens-continued-success-at-paint-the-badlands-inc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/leslie-thomas-and-mark-knudsens-continued-success-at-paint-the-badlands-inc\/","title":{"rendered":"Leslie Thomas and Mark Knudsen’s Continued Success at Paint the Badlands, Inc."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\n[dropcap]Their[\/dropcap] current exhibit, Utah Utah<\/em>, is another visual treat from Mark Knudsen and Leslie Thomas, the pair of painters who, for the past decade, have been carpooling to work \u2014 call it Paint the Badlands, Inc. \u2014 before heading off to their individual departments for research and development.<\/h4>\n

The Gallery at Library Square\u2019s two exterior walls and four interior ones are split evenly between the artists. On an outside wall, a few of Thomas\u2019 earlier works demonstrate her interest in the undulating forms of Utah\u2019s badlands \u2014 the eroding hills of gray, mauve and ochre bands that surround the Colorado Plateau. Her focus for the library, however, seems to be in the interior space, where she presents more than two dozen paintings, of various sizes, depicting the hoodoos of Goblin Valley. These mushroom-like forms, the result of harder, more compact stone sitting atop a more easily eroded layer, provide the artist endless visual material, both in color \u2014 Thomas takes delight in shadows full of velvety shades of carmine, indigo and purple \u2014 and composition \u2014 the large masses of stone and sky alternate for attention with a focus on small details. The hoodoos are depicted in individual and group portraits, and apart from a single work, where two young tourists are allowed to intrude on the compositions, appear unconcerned with our approval or contemplation, as content with their compelling majesty in the millenia before they were stumbled upon in the 1920s as in the decades since.<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While Thomas\u2019 single inclusion of the human seems an unfortunate anomaly within her broader exhibition, it is central to Knudsen\u2019s conception of painting \u201cthe new West.\u201d With works dating back as far as 2005 and as recent as this year, Knudsen\u2019s exhibition feels like a retrospective of sorts, one in which he revels in the un-picturesque practice of placing elements like highways, road signs and jet engine contrails in his landscapes. On the gallery\u2019s west wall, a half dozen of his characteristically long canvases are placed almost end to end so they fill the entire space. They alternate between highway scenes, featuring overpasses, ditches and semis, and dramatic redrock walls \u2014 like the memory of a road trip that includes both the destination and the journey.<\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In a 2013 review, Geoff Wichert remarked on how much the choice of medium defines each artist\u2019s work, which is evident in this show as well. Befitting a former newspaper designer, trained to create visuals that will read in an instant, Knudsen comes at the landscape focused on the most direct means of communication \u2014 laying in shadows, midtones and highlights with little modulation, an approach well-suited to his fast-drying acrylics. The works emphasize graphic elements, flattened shadows carving out forms on sandstone walls or cliffs of mancos shale. Meanwhile, in the oil department, Thomas concentrates on the flow \u2014 rather than the line \u2014 of light, spending as much time in the shadows as she does in the sun. While Knudsen\u2019s light can be stark, Thomas\u2019 is frequently ethereal. At the risk of oversimplifying, one could say that Knudsen communicates the idea of a landscape, while Thomas explores its feeling.<\/h4>\n