Tom Uttech
Recent Paintings

September 9 - October 21, 2006

The gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of Tom Uttech’s recent paintings. The show will include fifteen paintings dating from 2005-2006. This will be his first exhibition since his 2004 retrospective at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Uttech constructs a world imbued with notions of the sublime. His panoramic views use deep perspective with the minutest details coming into sharp focus, creating a dreamlike sense of the infinite. While the scenes of verdant northern forests are familiar, Uttech uses otherworldly elements to suggest this is not the forest you think you know. This play shifts the work back and forth between realism and a mythical interpretation.

A narrative is present, but ambiguous. Fauna, which is usually hidden, is visible. Sometimes in flight, other times in confrontational acknowledgment of the viewer - the zoomorphic elements evoke turbulence. The migration scenes are especially suggestive of imminent catastrophe. Also, there is no trace of the modern world, no power-lines, candy wrappers – no humans. It is an untouched ancient world from the past.