About

Mckenzie Paxton

My work is rooted in the landscapes where I spend my time. Rather than approaching a place as a visitor, I paint environments I know through lived experience—hiking, hunting, skiing, and returning to the same locations again and again. Prolonged time in a landscape deepens observation and creates a more intuitive understanding of its forms, light, and atmosphere. Through painting, I aim to translate that lived relationship with the mountains into visual form.

Spending extended time in specific places has become central to my practice. Returning repeatedly to a hillside in the Manti–La Sal Mountains revealed how subtly a landscape shifts throughout the day as shadows move and light changes. Similar experiences in the high country of the Wasatch Range and on winter ski slopes continue to shape my work. Whether observing evening light ignite the trees or the deep blues of snow shadows, my paintings emerge from time spent watching landscapes slowly reveal themselves.