Visual artist Stephanie Hock named her new exhibit “Lifting Together” because the nine works depicting the Park City winter-sports culture reflects the joy of life.

“I feel like the ski theme is such a great metaphor for the principle that I want to achieve in my art,” she said. “It’s about how life can be hard, but as we pull together and see and lift each other up, it can be so beautiful.”

The exhibit will open with a reception that is free and open to the public on Friday, Feb. 16, at JG Art Gallery + Events, The Prospect Executive Suites, 2078 Prospector Ave.

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Hock had an idea about how she wanted the exhibit’s theme to reflect through the selected acrylic works.

Life can be hard, but as we pull together and see and lift each other up, it can be so beautiful.” Stephanie Hock, visual artist

“I love the analogy of skiers who climb on a lift with loved ones or strangers, and ascend together to a higher plane,” she said. “You’re up and you see the earth in a different perspective. As you zoom out, it helps you see your life in a way that elicits hope.”

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Acrylic is Hock’s go-to medium for an array of reasons. The first is the paint’s bold colors.

“When I first started painting, I was working with oils, and I just couldn’t figure out the medium,” she said. “Oils stay wet for a long time. So when you put a color on top of another before the first layer has dried, the colors mix and darken the works.”

That’s one of the reasons many of the oil paintings from the Romantic and Baroque eras contain a lot of browns and blacks, Hock said.

“Acrylics opened up a world for me because they have that juicy and luscious texture of oils, but they also dry quickly,” she said. “So I could achieve the look of oils, but paint in pure colors layer after layer. And that allowed me to play with a style, and it was so much fun.”

Another reason Hock works with acrylic is because of her husband, Adam.

“I wasn’t a patient enough student to really master the oil technique, and it frustrated me,” she said. “So after college, I kind of gave up on art and got an office job, because I felt kind of hopeless.”
When Adam came into Hock’s life, he found out she majored in art.

“He wanted to see my work, and I said I wasn’t doing that anymore,” she said. “Then as a wedding present, he gave me three tubes of acrylic paints — red, yellow and blue — and said, ‘I believe in you as an artist and I will help you in any way I can. Let’s figure this out together.'”

Those words were just the boost Hock needed to restart her love of painting.

“I was a broken artist who didn’t believe in herself, and then I ended up taking workshops from people who painted in a style I wanted to paint,” she said.

The workshops were a supplement of the classes Hock had taken throughout the Intermountain West.

“I started up at Ricks College, which is now BYU Idaho, and got my associate’s degree up there,” she said. “Although I started as an art major, I did graphic design, because I thought that’s the only way I could make money as an artist.”

While graphic design provided Hock the foundation for design and the understanding in that world of creating works on the computer, she missed working with her hands.

“I missed getting messy with the paint, and Ricks didn’t have a bachelor’s program at that time,” she said. “So, I went to Southern Utah University and studied down there a bit.”

Hock then transferred to Brigham Young University in Provo, and ended up at Utah State University.

“I had this eclectic experience all over the region with different art professors, and that gave me a good overview of styles, methods and personalities, and different ways to solve art problems,” she said.

Hock’s work has always been inspired by the joy of the human experience, and she captures that emotion through her own creative method.

“I love photography, and I always have a camera,” she said. “Long before we had iPhones, I would carry a nice camera with film in my purse at all times. And my friends in high school would joke about Steph having a camera and capturing the memories of all the things we did.”

Hock usually starts with photographs when she is ready to create a painting.

“After taking pictures of the beauty I find, I’ll come back to my studio and sift through thousands of photos to find the stories and the things that spark the joy of being alive and living,” she said. “It’s a way for me to freeze time and hold on to the nostalgia of those fleeting moments. And I want the joy to come across in the paintings, and I feel I can do that through bright, rich and happy colors.”

Hock’s work captured the eye of JG Gallery + Events owner Jude Grenney, who has represented the artist for upwards of seven years.

“Been a fun ride to be with Jude,” Hock said. “Jude is so creative and inventive in figuring out new ways to show and sell our art, and I think she has done such a good job in finding opportunities for all of us.”