Ken Baxter

“A good painting should provide the viewer with a feeling that makes the ‘invisible’ visible: a feeling that elevates the commonplace to the poetic.” Thus for Ken Baxter, a prominent Rocky Mountain artist, his paintings must suggest a meaning that awakens the viewer – a meaning successfully communicated and understood.

Baxter felt his first stirrings to paint many decades ago. Though a native of San Diego, Ken Baxter resides in Spring City, Utah, where he received most of his formal education under the tutelage of landscape painter Frank Erickson and portrait painter Alvin Gittens. Upon completion of his university studies, Baxter taught art for five years. Though the life of a teacher has its compensations, his unshakable determination to place his full-time efforts in oil painting was realized in 1976 when he left the teaching profession and contracted with Tivoli Gallery in Salt Lake City to represent his works.

A study of his works to date would suggest a progressive journey for Baxter, as he expressed his talent within a wide range of motifs. Though an extremely versatile painter, enjoying both contemporary and historical subjects, his interests are primarily divided between landscape and city-scape themes. In his unique style, he strives to have the people he depicts blend with the natural settings. This blending irresistibly draws the observer into the beauty and message of the small world created by Baxter. “ I suppose one might attempt to define my style as ‘impressionistic realism.’ My themes are traditional, yet my brushwork is very spontaneous and often vigorous. In order to communicate effectively, the realist must exaggerate many of the technical aspects of his work.”

Extensive travel throughout Europe and into Mexico and Canada stimulated much of his interest the genre subject. His awakening interest in Western Art, depicted prominently in the Grand Canyon and Western Indian scenes, suggest a grand culmination of his interest in the more familiar and intimate aspects of everyday experience. Over the years, Ken Baxter has won numerous awards for his work in both local and national shows. He has exhibited throughout the West and Europe, placing over 3000 paintings in private, corporate and permanent museum collections.

Alvin Gittens, a highly respected portrait painter, remarked, “Ken deals with his subjects with crisp painterly assurance and a keen sense of mood and atmosphere. The scope of his themes is constantly expanding with design solutions which are novel to each one. It is as though one subject triggers another of totally different theme and mood to challenge his innate resourcefulness and daring. What pleases me most, however, is his ability to ‘pin down’ the time of day, the precise season, and even the temperature in his work. I suppose that the ultimate compliment that could be paid an artist is to say that because of his work, one comes to see the world around himself through the artist’s eyes. I pay Ken that compliment.”