’Scape Plan 

April is pretty much all about landscapes: landscapes at Phillips Gallery, landscapes at A Gallery, landscapes at Horne Fine Art. All by top-notch painters, but nonetheless all landscapes all the time. Even the edgy, new Kayo Gallery is featuring a landscape—but this is a landscape with a difference. All have receptions on Friday, April 15 at the Gallery Stroll, 6-9 p.m.

“Small Works Plus a Meadow,” Kayo Gallery, 315 E. 300 South, 450-5408, through May 9.

Davina Pallone’s 8-foot-square installation piece (the “meadow”) is a world inside a box. One you have to enter to experience. Gallery owner Kenny Riches said the walls are covered in glossy paint to resemble a meadow: “Grassy knoll and blue sky, but very stylized. On the floor beneath your feet is real grass that has been planted down—as in real grass that breathes and needs water. To top it off, she has a loop playing of birds chirping. It’s great,” he said. Other artists in the Kayo show are Briana Benson, Garrett Adkinson and Trent Call.

“Seasons at the Shrine: A Photographic Documentary,” Art Access II Gallery, 328-0703, through May 10.

Marguerite Roberts’ show at Art Access II Gallery is something of a cityscape. The exhibition focuses on the tree shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe at 300 East and 700 South in Salt Lake City. Roberts has passed the tiny park several times a week since 1997, when a woman first believed she saw an image of the Virgin Mary in the stump of a sawn-off tree limb. What was once considered a remarkable likeness is now a deep hole made by the fingers of hundreds of pilgrims blessing themselves with the sap oozing from the image on the tree.

The large elm has been decorated with flowers, photos, mementos and prayers to the Lady of Guadalupe. Devotional candles burn night and day at the base of the tree, where statues of different sizes and subjects have been placed over the years. A city-constructed set of metal steps replaced the rickety wood ladder that first was used to reach the image on the tree.

Several years ago, Roberts began documenting the changes that occur at the shrine over the course of a year using digital photography as well as her 35mm camera. She notes that there is less activity of late, but says unique events continue to surround this shrine.

If you missed Roberts’ “Cuba Dreams” exhibition at Ken Sanders’ shop last year, it is currently hanging at the recently opened Two Creek Coffeehouse, 502 E. Third Ave.

Court Bennett and Layne Meacham, Finch Lane Gallery/Art Barn, 54 Finch Lane, 596-5000, through June 3.

At Finch Lane, Kim Duffin has mounted an exhibit of what might be termed “mindscapes:” a mixed media sculpture installation by Court Bennett and abstract paintings by Layne Meacham referencing his experiences and study of Latin American environments (his “Caliente Protea” is below). Sculpture and paintings are usually a good mix at this gallery, and Duffin expects this will be a great exhibit.

Bennett describes his work as quirky and enigmatic. “Each piece exists in its own odd sphere, subject to its own strange rules, purposes and reasons.” Meacham incorporates modeling paste, oil stick, pastel, plaster, enamel paint and other stuff to make art he hopes will not be boring to the viewer. He began studying art as a junior high student in Park City during the early ’60s, went on to get a master’s degree in social work and started painting seriously as a release valve for work-related stress. “Sublimation,” Meacham says, “has always been the goal.”