The Sears Art Museum Gallery highlighted Gaell Lindstrom’s 76-year career of organic somber artwork.
The Dixie State University Sears Art Museum Gallery features different artists several times a year. The museum recently featured a selection of art from Lindstrom’s career, which spanned from 1930 to 2006.
According to gaell-lindstrom.com, Lindstrom was an award-winning artist, and his work has been featured in galleries all over the world. In 1953 he started his teaching career in Cedar City, Utah, in the junior and senior high schools, after which, he moved on to teach at the College of Southern Utah. In 1957, he started teaching art at Utah State University.
In a press release, Kathy Cieslewicz, curator of the Sears Art Museum Gallery, said,”The artwork is from Lindstrom’s earliest work as a young person to his later grand works, showing his progress as an artist.”
She said Lindstrom had a vast variety of mediums throughout his career but was most known for watercolors.
Hundreds of paintings and photographs lined the walls, categorized by the years they were created by Lindstrom. At the end of the exhibit stood two tables with different types of pottery made by Lindstrom.
The gallery started the exhibit with Lindstrom’s photographs, taken outside of the United States, focusing on culture and scenery, catching vivid details of his subjects. Many of the displayed paintings had been painted in watercolor, using dark, subdued, hues, with organic scenery. His color choice brought a feeling of somberness and reflection from an observer’s point of view. Two display tables showcased symmetrical bowls and thin-top vases. Lindstrom also utilized darker hues in the creation of pottery.
Braxton Kunde, a sophomore business administration major from Ivins, was attending the art exhibit with other students in the DSU honors program.
He said his classmates all voted to meet at the Sears Art Museum Gallery for part of their class, as they all like art. He stated this was his first time seeing Lindstrom’s work and Lindstrom was a talented artist.
“I feel Lindstrom is talented and this shows, due to the many years he cultivated his art collection and the different genres of artwork presented here,” Kunde said.
Megan Schow, from Minnesota, was in St. George visiting her grandmother and aunt.
“My grandma brought me here after she had received an email about the exhibit from a What’s Happening in St George email, I am glad we came, the artwork is beautiful,” she said. “I had never heard of this artist, I liked that his art used darker hues and colors.”
Schow said Lindstrom’s painting of “Ted Hills Near Hanksville” was her favorite piece.
“I come down here to look at the red rocks so I was particularly drawn to that particular painting,” she said.