Working off the grid in a cabin outside of Park City—the home and studio she fashioned from a repurposed shipping container—Bridgette Meinhold is putting the final touches on a new collection of encaustic and cold-wax paintings at Gallery MAR beginning November 7. How the Light Gets In continues her long engagement with the mountain landscapes that surround her, exploring atmosphere, light, and the changing moods of weather. Her new series uses both traditional encaustic techniques, in which molten beeswax and pigment are fused layer by layer, and the colder, matte textures of wax and oil. The result is a range of surfaces that suggest the physical qualities of air and light, while maintaining a sense of quiet restraint.

Trained as a chemical and environmental engineer at Stanford University, Meinhold brings a methodical sensibility to her studio practice. Her earlier career in sustainability consulting still informs her awareness of how human and natural systems overlap—a perspective that gives these landscapes an understated ecological dimension. Meinhold often paints or sketches in watercolor on location during hikes or ski tours and these serve as field studies for her encaustic paintings back in the studio. The natural world—particularly the fog, snow, and shifting light outside her door—remains her primary subject and collaborator.

In a 2013 15 Bytes profile, Meinhold described her work as an effort to “preserve memories,” translating her experiences outdoors into paintings that recall “that feeling of what it was at that moment.” That idea continues here, though her approach has become less about topography and more about tone. The paintings hover between landscape and abstraction, their horizons often obscured by mist or dissolving light. The exhibition’s title, How the Light Gets In, refers not only to the literal qualities of illumination but also to a process of finding openings and reflection. The works suggest transition rather than arrival—moments between weather events, between seeing and remembering. Viewers familiar with Meinhold’s earlier, moodier encaustics will find continuity here, but also a lighter palette and a subtle invitation to look closer at what lies within the haze.

Bridgette Meinhold: How the Light Gets In, Gallery MAR, Park City, November 7 – November 30.
Opening reception: Friday, November 7, 6-9 pm.

All images courtesy of Gallery MAR.

Shawn Rossiter

The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.