The artist
Aaron Fritz
Paintings as records
of remembered feelings.

Biography
Aaron Fritz creates emotionally charged figurative paintings that explore memory, place, and human connection. Working between abstraction and representation, he transforms familiar landscapes and everyday encounters into vivid psychological spaces. His expressive use of color, visible brushwork, and fragmented narratives invite viewers to participate in the construction of meaning.
Largely self-taught, Fritz spent twelve years working alongside his mother, an oil-painting teacher who later worked in stained glass. That experience taught him design, composition, graphic structure, and patience. He draws inspiration from Vincent van Gogh’s expressive strokes and Joaquín Sorolla’s treatment of light and shadow.
His practice brings together expressionist and impressionist approaches with elements of street art. He works with acrylic, oil, oil sticks, spray paint, and resin. Rooted in the landscapes and experiences of the American West, his paintings examine the quiet moments between people, the persistence of memory, and the emotional resonance of ordinary life.
In the studio
A painting in progress
Artist statement
Memory rather than observation
These paintings are built from remembered experiences, emotional impressions, and fragments of places revisited through memory. Familiar but anonymous figures embody recognition, longing, reflection, and connection.
“I am less interested in painting what a place looked like than how it felt after I left it.”
The space between people
People stand beside one another, look away, and share space without making eye contact. The emotional narrative unfolds in the distance between them. Beach scenes, garden scenes, and city creek paintings suggest conversations that happened before the painting begins or after it ends.
“The subject of the painting is often the silence between the figures rather than the figures themselves.”
Color as emotion
Pink shadows, green skin, orange light, purple mountains: color carries emotional information. A viewer senses mood before identifying the subject.
“I use color the way a musician uses volume. It carries emotion before it carries description.”
Selected career history
Exhibitions & service
Solo exhibitions
| 2026 | 2860 Gallery |
|---|---|
| 2021 | Vickers Gallery; Salt Lake Wasatch |
| 2019 | Vail |
| 2018 | Vickers; 350 Main; Wasatch Gallery |
| 2014 | Eccles |
| 2013 | New Works, 350 Main |
| 2012 | Coda Gallery (January); Coda Gallery (July) |
| 2011 | Coda Palm Springs |
| 2009 | Vail |
| 2006 | Wasatch Gallery |
Group exhibitions
| 2025 | St. George |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Beaver Creek |
| 2021 | Phoenix, Arizona |
| 2019 | Salt Lake City |
| 2018 | Eccles |
| 2016 | Salt Lake City; Pilar Garden — An Afternoon with Pilar |
| 2012 | Vail; Coda Gallery; Park City Yard Accessible Exhibition |
Professional service
2019–2026
Board of Directors, Eccles Community Art Center
