Alexandre Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by Tom Uttech (b. 1942, Merrill, Wisconsin). This exhibition is presented at the gallery with an expanded version presented online at alexandregallery.com.

Known for his spiritual paintings of woodland scenes in North America, Uttech uses memories of a life spent outdoors as his subject. Intermingling traditional landscape painting with magic realism, his works straddle dream and meticulous composition—a style that extends out to the frames, which are often hand- painted by the artist.

Uttech’s new paintings are divided roughly into three primary motifs: “Migrations,” in which the landscapes are inhabited with dense arrangements of flying birds; “Reflections,” the newest of his motifs, in which complex details of forest patterns are reflected in water; and “Panoramas,” in which the viewer looks out toward a distant horizon in a scene described by the critic Lucy Lippard where “the scrubby natural grandeur and spiritual power of this place is transmitted with extraordinary detail that transcends ordinary experience.” In his Reflection paintings—the newest of his motifs—Uttech challenges himself to capture the perception-altering experience of looking at reflections in nature. Culled from a memory of methodically paddling his canoe on a clear lake with perfectly still water, the hypnotic paintings evoke the meditative state of consciousness Uttech enters when observing two worlds simultaneously—the tangible landscape and its mysterious reflection.