Gary E. Smith (1942 - ) Gary Ernest Smith was born and raised in rural Oregon, and at the age of 26, relocated to Utah. Smith is a graduate of Brigham Young University, where he was taught to capture the grandeur of God's kingdom through dynamic symmetry by teacher, Dale Fletcher. Smith's rich, tonalist landscapes are composed in such a way as to isolate the central figure of the painting (as well as the audience), in the vastness of his landscapes. Many of his subjects are part in a particular fashion, in that they become part of the setting. Day to day life in Utah is Gary Smith's most noted subject matter. Smith's farmers, conservative family settings, and landscapes, are rendered by the artist's application of bold color onto the canvas with a palette knife instead of a brush, which produces a heavy, earthy tangibility to his works. The presence of Earth's majesty is eminent. Smith's compositions always include the horizon, which is full of luscious dusk colors, reminiscent of those used in Monet's series of haystack studies. Still in Utah, Gary Smith continues to produce gorgeous, contemplative paintings out of his Highland studio.