The Sears Art Museum at Utah Tech University is featuring a new group exhibition titled "Fractured Lands / Fractured Narratives," which features eight artists from Utah and Idaho. The collection challenges traditional approaches to landscape painting by exploring the intersection of abstraction, landscape, and the stories humans attach to the natural world.
The exhibition features works by Shelly Coleman, Micah Henrie, Tyler Tāne Huntzinger, Aaron Cordell Johnson, David Mensing, Matt Pectol, Barry Scharf, and Steve Sheffield. Each participating artist was asked whether their abstract landscape paintings are driven by formal choices or metaphor. This question invites artists to consider whether their work emerges from formal elements like color, composition, texture, and gesture, or from the ideas, experiences, and associations that landscapes can evoke.
Sears Art Museum Director and Curator James Peck describes the collection as contemporary realism. While the works retain connections to recognizable landscapes, the artists move beyond straightforward representation through inventive formal choices. Peck stated that while landscape painting has traditionally been associated with the depiction of place, abstraction allows artists to explore less tangible elements such as the memories, experiences, and ideas projected onto the land.
The exhibition is set to open Nov. 13 with a public reception held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and will remain on view through Jan. 8, 2027. The exhibit is free and open to the public at the Sears Art Museum, which is located on the Utah Tech University campus in the Dolores Doré Eccles Fine Arts Center at 155 S. University Ave. in St. George. The museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is closed on university holidays.
The participating artists are based in Utah or Idaho, a region defined by dramatic geology and a complex cultural landscape. The exhibition explores how artists transform experiences of landscapes, such as mountain ranges and expansive deserts, into visual statements rather than documenting specific locations.
