SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

Trent Gudmundsen

Trent Gudmundsen (born 1978 in California, USA) grew up in a small Utah farming community where he began oil painting at the age of 14. He later attended college on a full-tuition art scholarship, but the artist frequently found himself painting in the nearby fields and canyons instead of attending his classes because he “learned so much more by just painting.” …but the experience yielded one lasting result: the artist, bored of his classes, decided to paint quick studies of the people around him, and quickly found that he was quite good at painting people. Trent soon left school to paint on his own and thereafter moved to Colorado where he met and married Lorajean. That same year, Southwest Art magazine recognized Trent’s potential in their annual “21 Under 31” article. (Later, the magazine would feature Trent in a 6-page feature [in August 2010]).

Trent’s work has now been recognized with top awards on a national level including at the American Impressionist Society National Exhibition (NY, NY. 2019), two Oil Painters of America National Exhibitions (2003 & 2009), and the National Oil & Acrylic Painters Society’s “Best of America” Exhibit (2019).

Inspired largely by European and Soviet impressionists and realists, Gudmundsen’s paintings are traditional in theme, but painted in what amounts to be a very contemporary approach, often simplifying parts of the painting down to just graphic blocks of color, and other times by subduing and “de-constructing” the edges of figures until they almost meld with the background. Unlike some contemporary works that seek to temporarily ‘wow’ the viewer with garish colors and gimmicky methods, Gudmundsen’s work seeks to be both accurate and subdued while also tantalizing the viewer with a reserved amount of implied texture and thick brushwork, a combination that yields works of art that become more and more visually gratifying the more they’re viewed and lived with.

Trent’s never-ending artistic goal is to say more and more with each painting while giving the viewer more and more opportunity to fill in the rest of the visual story on their own. In that way, Gudmundsen’s works are suggestions for the viewer to remember or create an experience unique and important to them.

Trent and Lorajean and their 6 children live in their hand-build stone farmhouse near Preston, Idaho.