Artist Spotlight: Lizzie Wenger

Finding A Community in the Outdoors Through Art

Salt Lake City based artist Lizzie Wenger shares her inspiration behind colorful landscape scenes depicting wild areas across the western US. Infused with activism and adventure, her art brings wild landscapes to viewers in the form of murals and canvas paintings.

This interview is part of a collection of stories featuring women in the outdoors. Find other articles in this collection here.

Lizzie grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has always been drawn to the outdoors and creativity. Up until her later teen years, these two were separate. She’d go climbing and skiing in her free time, then focus on art in school. She didn’t find her community or connect with other women in the outdoors until adulthood, (partially due to the male dominated nature of outdoor sports).

Could you tell me a little bit about yourself? 

Lizzie: I’m Lizzie, I’m from Salt Lake, born and raised. I am 22 years old now. I’m an artist and my work focuses primarily on landscapes throughout the western states. 

How do you get into depicting these natural landscapes? What drew you to landscape paintings chronicling all your adventures?

Lizzie: Growing up I was really focused on outdoor recreation and as a teenager I got really into climbing and generally recreating in the outdoors. Painting my adventures and merging my passions has served as a means to document and share both the landscapes and how they make me feel. I’ve been a painter my whole life and really started to focus on landscapes in my senior year of high school and haven’t painted a portrait since. 

You grew up in Utah and you’ve chosen to make that your home. What drew you to staying in this place?

Lizzie: Yeah, there’s this really strong counterculture focused on arts and activism, along with a wealth of outdoor recreation, that’s kind of emerged since I’ve been here. Growing up in Utah, I always just wanted to get away and live somewhere where it felt like there was more going on and out of a desire to find and meet more likeminded people. The changes in Salt Lake and finding my community in the outdoors and the arts has kept me here. I also have a lot of family in the area and I think it’s a pretty cool place to put down roots. It’s a really cool place and it’s just getting cooler.

The access here is really incredible. I love the red rocks, I love the mountains. You can get both here and it’s super close. 

Are all of your adventures based in Utah, or have you traveled to other areas?

Lizzie: This past summer I was hiking mountains with a couple other gals and we did seven mountains, six summits, in under a month. We got to climb all these beautiful mountains in Washington and Oregon. It was probably one of my favorite adventures of all time. Seeing an environment of high alpine glaciers was incredible. Our adventures day to day are in the state. We get out of the city, drive a couple of hours, but I would like to explore more of the west coast, especially the Sierras. 

Is it difficult to choose which landscapes you want to feature? How does your process happen?

Lizzie: It’s really hard to even know what I’m going to paint next. A lot of what I try to do in my work is capture moments that mean something to me. I take a lot of reference photos but the most important part is how I felt in that place and what I want to convey. And I’ll go through phases. There will be a couple months, where I’m really digging oranges and greens together, then I’ll ask myself, what areas or what adventures do I want to revisit right now. What do I want that to feel like on canvas?

That’s such a great way to do it. I feel like you’re connecting with the piece more. It seems like there’s a lot of emotion invested in it. When you’re making these pieces, do you have specific feelings in mind or ways that you want your audience to view it?

Lizzie: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially as I’ve gotten more into murals and public art installations, I find that landscapes resonate with a lot of people, and they can find inspiration in them. As I create these pieces, I keep in mind that it’s an opportunity to share without words.  I want to create a design that forces people to look at the landscape as a whole. But then beyond that, to see the colors and see the patterns and how that makes you feel. And I go to these places and try to make something that inspires them and reminds them of the natural areas we’re fighting for.

As I create these pieces, I keep in mind that it’s an opportunity to share without words… I try to make something that inspires them and reminds people of the natural areas we’re fighting for.

It sounds like you try to weave activism into your artwork. Looking at the descriptions on some of your pieces, you’re telling the story of a landscape that may not be protected right now or is currently being discussed in political movements. So it seems like you’re raising awareness to these issues as well by bringing them into the mainstream view.

Lizzie: That’s my hope. It can be hard when you’re not using words to convey that. I wish that there was more that I could do. I also try to work with nonprofits based in Salt Lake. I’m hoping to find more ways to weave in activism in my work to make it a subliminal message. I’m trying to focus more and more in my body of work on capturing places that are presently being affected by politics. So for example, Great Salt Lake is something that’s a huge issue here in Salt Lake right now and it’s something I’m focusing on in my work at the local level.

Little Cottonwood Canyon is currently under political turmoil as well, an eight mile gondola running the length of the canyon has been proposed as a solution to increased traffic and is currently in the planning stages. It’s a solution that prioritizes private ski resorts and disregards environmental impacts, access to public land, and the loss of well loved climbing/recreation areas.

The gondola will only have two stops at Alta and Snowbird, limiting access both in the sense that the gondola will not provide transportation to recreation on public land, and that the gondola will only be available to those who can afford it. LCC’s access to hiking, climbing, and backcountry skiing on public lands won’t be accessible with use of the Gondola. The infrastructure required for the gondola will also disturb these climbing areas, trails, and backcountry skiing areas. One of SLC’s main water sources is in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Gondola infrastructure will inevitably impact this watershed both during construction and when completed. The gondola’s hefty price tag will be paid for by taxpayers, despite massive opposition and call for further exploration of other solutions. And truth be told, the broad majority of those who drive up the canyon will likely still choose to.

While the growth of tourism, more residents, & outdoors sports in Salt Lake City has brought a lot of positives like more people having access to recreation, the gondola is an example of one of the huge negatives that comes with increased traffic and use, and poor decision making by those who decide the future of said access.

Though it can be hard to stay hopeful, that’s where the amazing community of activism comes in!

There’s ways to help. The following nonprofits are actively helping to promote conversation/awareness and take action with an environmental focus in Utah for years to come.

• Rural Utah Project – Empowers voters in Utah through educational campaigns and promote access to voting for rural communities to protect Utah’s future.
• Salt Lake Climbers Alliance – Uniting climbers in the Salt Lake City area and bringing access and sustainability to climbing areas.
• Save Our Canyons – Focused on protecting the beauty and wildness of the Wasatch Mountain Range in Utah. Actively advocating against the gondola.
• Friends of the Great Salt Lake – Protecting the Great Salt Lake ecosystem through advocacy missions and educational work.

I have a showing next year where I’ll be able to capture these places and show them to the public eye and celebrate activism in its message. I want to paint something that people need to pay attention to, and prompt them to look it up and do research on these issues to learn more about it and kind of create that ripple effect. One of my favorite things is that people are like, Oh, is this that place? I’ve been working on stuff before and had people come up to me asking, oh is this that area? I love that people have their own connections to landscapes, it doesn’t necessarily matter where the painting is of, but that it prompts a conversation and connection.

In your work, you’re often drawn to different colors at certain points, and in varying landscapes. Now that you’re moving into murals too, can you share a bit about how the focus in your work has shifted over the years?

Lizzie: I think especially in my 20s, I’m in this place naturally in my life where I’m seeing a lot of changes and growth where that translates to my artwork. So pretty regularly I see a shift in how I work with colors, lines, landscapes, subjects. It depends on what I’m feeling at the moment and what I put into my work. Creating artwork can be a very solitary time, so making murals gives me the opportunity to work with other communities, other artists, other people, other business owners, and create something that is more community based. I’ve always loved making large scale pieces and the mural work I have been doing has become a great way to share about environmental activism as well. 

Something else I’d love to talk about as well is how you’ve found a community through art and through your adventures. Especially how that has changed being in Salt Lake City your whole life, from what it was when you were growing up to what it is now. 

Lizzie: I remember climbing when I was ten or eleven years old and I’d go into school with chalk on my pants and people would think I was dirty. So I didn’t really have that many people that were my age who I could share those experiences with. That’s something I really wanted all throughout my earlier years. It wasn’t really until college that I started to find people who were interested in both art and being outside. We have a very robust art community in Salt Lake and it’s getting bigger and bigger, which is so cool. We have a lot of local markets that promote residents to shop small, and that creates a really great community. In terms of the outdoors, a lot of my climbing partners were guys, finding more women in the community over the past few years has been amazing. It’s awesome to be able to get out there exploring and climbing with other women, it’s just a different experience. The Salt Lake climbing community has grown a lot, but it’s always been very heavily male dominated, so it’s been difficult to get other women to climb with. There’s also a lot of elitism in our outdoor recreation, unfortunately.

Being out there climbing, it’s really inspiring to see female guides breaking these barriers.

Especially on my mountaineering trip, a lot of the guides on Rainier were all male. We first tried in 2022, but didn’t summit, then went back in 2023. (Read more about Lizzie’s mountaineering trip here.) We were met with a lot of not-so-subtle misogyny from other (male) climbers and rangers alike. Our second year on the mountain with a female ranger at base camp was a much more welcoming and encouraging experience. Being out there climbing, it’s really inspiring to see female guides breaking these barriers. And there’s been more and more programs starting that help with these issues. There’s still so much to work on, and it’s really important to contribute what you can. It doesn’t always have to look like volunteering your time or money, but incorporate what you love, whether you’re an artist or guide or do something else in your work. That leads to a lot of vibrancy and political awareness.

Learn more about Lizzie Wenger through her website and through social media.