SALT LAKE CITY — Millions of people — every time they drive into Utah, fly into Salt Lake City or watch one particular Wes Anderson movie, have seen his artwork, but likely few know his name.

It’s David Meikle , and many of his paintings are distinctive red rock landscapes of Utah and the Southwest.

Meikle is both a fine artist and an art director (his day job is art director of the University of Utah), so he generally collects elements — mountains, trees and clouds — with his iPhone and then back in the studio, arranges them on canvas.

“I think the, you know, official term is artistic license,” he said.

He likes to put a sense of distance, looking through layers and layers of mountaintops and decreasing color values, into his work.

“There’s a clarity that we have here,” he said. “I’m

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