Ken Sanders Rare Books is pleased to announce "Roadside Utah" an exhibition of landscape paintings by Utah artist Leslie. Of the landscapes in "Roadside Utah" Thomas has said: "Although, or maybe because, I have lived many years elsewhere, the beauty of my native state has always been my ideal. This Utah landscape - so much of it not for our use, not to our scale - has been my central experience of the beauty of this world.

I want to make paintings that show the West, not comprehended by faith or theory, but odd and beautiful, delicious to the eye and to the heart. Between us art-lovers there is a common hope – that a painting can participate in the creation of meaning, and that our understanding of it is a part of that meaning."

Leslie Thomas is a long-time Salt Lake resident who has studied under artists such as Mark Knudsen, Don Doxey, James, McBeth, Tony Smith, Dave Dornan, Paul Davis, Bonnie Posselli, and weaver Sharon Alderman.

Her work has been shown in various venues including the Patrick Moore Gallery, the Springville Spring Salon, Tanner Frames and Gallery, Local Colors Gallery, the Deseret Morning News Landscape Show, and the Utah State Fair. Thomas worked in computer engineering for over twenty years, though she now paints full time. She and her husband, artist Mark Knudsen, currently live in Salt Lake City.

Location: Ken Sanders Rare Books, 268 South 200 East