Tranquil Ecstasy

A retrospective of the art of Tom Uttech

One of the neatest things about nature is that it is totally chaotic at all times, while it is simultaneously totally organized. And a lot of that organization has to do with symmetry. Symmetry is life; it’s reality. That is magic. Painting, hopefully, can do that too.  -Tom Uttech

In his paintings, photographs and prints, Tom Uttech reflects what he calls, “the symmetry in life.” There are places he feels a spiritual affinity for. They are found in an area of the North Woods geologically known as the Canadian Shield, which stretches from central Canada all the way out to Newfoundland, and which dips into the extreme north of the northern US.  It is a land of glacial lakes, boreal plants and animals, and few human inhabitants. “When I am there, I feel at home, complete, and invisible. I try to have my paintings contain and communicate that feeling.”

 

Tom Uttech is one of America’s finest landscape artists. His enigmatic images, based on the verdant northern woodlands of the Precambrian Shield and the animals that inhabit them, have few parallels in contemporary art.  Since the inclusion of his paintings in the 1975 Whitney Biennial, his work has been the subject of more than thirty-five one-person exhibitions, receiving praise from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian.com, Village Voice, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Art in America. Uttech was born in Merrill, Wisconsin.