{"id":90058,"date":"2025-01-30T07:16:43","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T14:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=90058"},"modified":"2025-03-17T14:59:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T21:59:36","slug":"mark-knudsen-and-claudia-sisemore-offer-two-perspectives-on-the-western-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/mark-knudsen-and-claudia-sisemore-offer-two-perspectives-on-the-western-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Knudsen and Claudia Sisemore Offer Two Perspectives on the Western Landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Landscape

Mark Knudsen, “Along I-70,” acrylic on panel, 11 x 37 1\/2 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

Regular visitors to Phillips Gallery will be familiar with the work of Mark Knudsen, whose paintings of what he has called \u201cthe new West\u201d have been a regular presence in its exhibitions for several years. Knudsen\u2019s style\u2014rooted in his years as a designer and illustrator for The Salt Lake Tribune<\/i>\u2014is marked by broad, dry expanses of earth tones and deep, unfettered shadows, conveying with minimal elements the light and shadow of the Colorado Plateau.<\/h4>\n

Knudsen is drawn to the familiar yet striking formations of Utah\u2019s badlands, whether the reds and salmons of rounded Navajo sandstone or gray Mancos Shale hills topped with golden caps, their forms etched by millennia of erosion. But beyond their natural grandeur, Knudsen\u2019s compositions capture the evolving reality of the West, where nature and infrastructure intersect. Railroad tracks, power lines, highways, and vehicles subtly yet insistently weave into the landscapes. In some works, these elements are peripheral; in others, they are unavoidable disruptions. A camper punctuates the foreground of one piece, while the thin white streaks of airplane contrails cut across a pale blue sky above the San Rafael Swell. In Mill Canyon<\/i>, the imposing lattice of power lines looms over the red rock formations, an intrusive geometry against the ancient landforms. Fences, poles, and roads reframe our perception of the landscape, reflecting how most of us encounter these vast spaces\u2014not as untouched wilderness but as scenery viewed from the window of a moving car.<\/h4>\n
\"Stylized

Mark Knudsen, “Into The Reeds,” acrylic on panel, 11 x 30 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Stylized

Mark Knudsen, “Mill Canyon,” acrylic on panel, 11 x 37 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

The exhibition\u2019s layout enhances this experience. Knudsen\u2019s long-format works, all of similar size, are displayed at eye level in a horizontal arrangement across three walls, evoking the sensation of looking through a series of windows. The effect is immersive\u2014one is surrounded by a panorama of the West, the paintings offering glimpses of a terrain both expansive and interrupted.<\/h4>\n

Downstairs, in contrast, Claudia Sisemore\u2019s stained and painted canvas works offer, whether intentionally or not, an abstraction of the Western landscape. Where Knudsen presents the land in recognizable forms, Sisemore distills its essence\u2014its colors, its rhythms, its tectonic forces\u2014into layered compositions of shape and hue. The weight and balance of rock formations, the shifting interplay of earth and sky, the compression of geologic time\u2014all seem embedded in these canvases.<\/h4>\n
\"Abstract

Claudia Sisemore, “Untitled,” acrylic on canvas, 64 x 54 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sisemore, who died last August<\/a>, may be\u2014and may remain\u2014best known as a filmmaker, who in particular documented the lives and works of Utah artists like LeConte Stewart, Doug Snow, Alvin Gittins and Anton Rasmussen (since her passing, the Salt Lake City Library has been compiling a DVD collection of her films); but she began her career as a painter in the early 1970s. Several of these are from that period, and while the works are untitled, it\u2019s hard not to see in them a response to the western landscape.<\/h4>\n

One can sense the echoes of canyon walls, the fissures of desert rock, the contrast of sky against the earth\u2019s mass. In some pieces, deep blues and greens suggest the shadows of a slot canyon or the fleeting pools of water after a storm. In others, siennas and ochres vibrate against fields of black and indigo, like the last light on the cliffs at dusk. There is a palpable solidity to her compositions, yet they resist confinement; turn them on their sides, and they still hold their balance, as if gravity itself is an adjustable force within their world.<\/h4>\n