Harmony in contrast

It's serendipitous, having the art of Stephen Schultz and Romey Stuckart exhibited simultaneously in the Salt Lake Art Center: they're husband and wife.

"Both of the spaces were available at the same time," said Jim Edwards, the exhibits' curator. "That's why it happened. I was very interested in showing their work, and it was great that we could show them both together."

Stuckart's art — in the upstairs Street Level gallery through Sept. 21 — is a series of 14 paintings of the woods of Northern Idaho, illustrating her growth from stylized realism to abstraction. With confident, gestural strokes and lush, thick color, Stuckart burrows deep into the forest primeval, creating imagery uniquely her own.

Schultz — in the downstairs Main gallery through Sept. 28 — employs stylized figuration and cryptic symbolism in his art. His 19 large canvases — that span the last two decades — mystify, but ultimately satisfy because each enigmatic narrative is flawlessly composed and executed.

Although married, Schultz and Stuckart keep separate studios in Sandpoint, Idaho, where they live. The studios are large, situated back to back, with separate entrances and separate phones. There is, however, an adjoining door.

"They keep their working life separate," said Edwards, "but I think in many ways they influence each other."

As accomplished and interesting as Stuckart's pre-1992 paintings are — "Wound" (oil on canvas, 48 by 54 inches, 1990) is particularly fine — it's her abstracts that excite. In "Submerged II" (oil on canvas, 72 by 93 inches, 1995) Stuckart has created a painting so visually engrossing visitors will be spellbound. Here is the primordial soup: clusters of cellular forms float as if on the surface of a microscope's glass slide, a green luminescent fluid embraces pods and roots, and other undecipherable forms — in a stage ranging from conception to decay — inhabit the canvas.

In reference to her use of colors, Edwards said: "The colors of her paintings are those of the woods of northern Idaho; the red of the blister rust of the white pine, the burnt orange of the autumn needles of the Tamarack and dull gray-green of the dwarf mistletoes."

Even though Stuckart has adopted abstraction by choice, she still plays on the richness and mystery of nature.

Schultz's narrative flair is admirable, his craftsmanship sound. "These works," said Edwards, "are incredibility tight in terms of how they're composed. There's hardly a mark wasted."