Rett Ashby paints the places people actually live in and walk through. Back roads and old houses that still hold stories in their walls. He isn’t chasing a perfect image so much as a lived moment. Using a palette knife, he scrapes, carves, and layers oil paint until the surface feels almost sculpted. Up close, the work is texture and gesture; step back, and the scene settles into a landscape you can wander inside.

Born in Rigby, Idaho and raised in Roy, Utah, Rett grew up watching his mother, watercolorist Sandra Ashby, work at the kitchen table. He later studied at Weber State University and Utah State University with artists such as Harrison Groutage, Glen Edwards, and LeConte Stewart, and continues to learn from painters he admires, from Richard Schmid and Scott Christensen to many of the old masters.

Fellow painters often call him an “artist’s artist,” curious about how he gets his surfaces to move and catch the light. Rett simply thinks of it as a conversation: the paint reacts to his hand, he reacts to what appears on the canvas, and the viewer finishes the painting by bringing their own memories and imagination to it.