Wisconsin’s Tom Uttech at ‘Independent New York 2024’ Art Show

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Beauty may lie in the eye of the beholder, but for artist Tom Uttech the beauty found in the intricately detailed landscapes he paints permeates his entire being, making him one with his subject matter. Next month, Big Apple art lovers will get another taste of Uttech’s considerable talents at Independent New York 2024, at which the artist from Saukville, Wisconsin, will be making his New York art fair debut.

It won’t be Uttech’s first exposure to the sophisticated East Coast crowd. Alexandre Gallery, which has represented Uttech’s work in New York for a decade, already has presented his paintings in gallery shows four or five times. This time he was offered a solo slot at the art fair in which several of his larger landscape canvases will be on display. The largest work, Nin-Babishagi (2022), is an oil-on-linen painting measuring 91” x 103” including artist's hand-painted frame.

“Uttech’s paintings transport the viewer to wild realms and an untouched wilderness, reminding us of our profound connection to the natural world that surrounds us and is so increasingly fragile,” says gallery president Phil Alexandre. “We’re excited to share his new large-scale paintings at Independent New York and with a new audience—work that may be his very best to date.” 

Uttech, who grew up in Merrill, Wisconsin, has long been painting his north woods surroundings. He studied at Milwaukee’s Layton School of Art, which closed in 1974, and earned an MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 1976. Except for a brief period in college where he experimented with what were then current trends in art, Uttech has always turned to the north woods for inspiration. It’s where he found himself, he says, and it will always be part of his consciousness.

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“I grew up with the environment and always wanted to make images of it,” Uttech says. “I gradually became more and more a part of the woods. I wanted to live there and I have never really walked out of the woods.”

Flora and Fauna

The artist’s paintings are vibrant and alive with the flora and fauna of the Wisconsin woods, and occasionally those of Ontario, where he also has painted. The amount of wildlife appearing on canvas is often astounding and represents not so much what Uttech sees on his visits, but more the spirit of the environment he seeks to represent. That same feeling is reciprocal, he says, with the landscape becoming as much a part of him personally as it has his art.

“The images represent things, but more importantly to me is that they recreate the feeling that affects me when I am out in the wilderness,” Uttech explains. “Experiencing the wilderness has to do with everything out there and how humans respond to visual experiences. When you look at a tree your eye can drift instantly to the background that reaches a mile or so beyond. The feeling of experiencing that is more interesting to me than depicting any specific thing.

“When you’re in a place that speaks to you for a long time you enter different states of awareness that transcend what is visible and allow you to experience the force behind it all,” Uttech adds.

For the 81-year-old painter, art has always been a means of expression way back to the days when he sat in his highchair attempting to draw whatever he could see. He has no intention of abandoning his passion anytime soon, he says.

“I want to paint as if I am the environment and can answer the spirit of the subject rather than just depict it,” Uttech explains. “I try to become the space that I paint, but that doesn’t happen to me very often.”

Tom Uttech’s work will be on display May 9-12 in the Alexandre Gallery booth as part of Independent New York 2024, this year being held at Spring Studios, 50 Varick St., New York City. For more information, visit alexandregallery.com/exhibitions/independent-tom-uttech.