Josh Clare: Mormon Artist
Josh Clare is a Utah landscape artist whose work is featured in the Payson Utah Temple. He painted Mount Loafer, which is the focal point from the window of his parents’ home in Salem, Utah. He will also have a painting in the Star Valley Wyoming Temple. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Clare was born in 1982 and remembers drawing as a child, but he didn’t begin painting until he started studying art at BYU-Idaho. In fact, his first visit to an art gallery or museum occurred in tandem with his first oil painting class—a trip to the galleries in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He earned his bachelor’s of fine art in illustration in 2007 and paints full time.
He has earned numerous awards, including artists choice at the 2012 Laguna Plein Air Invitational and second place in the Raymar 6th Annual Painting Competition. Early in 2014 Clare was featured for three consecutive months in several art magazines: Western Art and Architecture, Southwest Art, and Art of the West. He has been honored with two Plein Air Magazine Award at the Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational, Laguna Beach, California (2014 and 2011); first place at the 2011 Paint San Clemente Plein Air Competition, San Clemente, California; 2010 - Best of Show in the November 2010 Boldbrush Painting Competition; and Best of Show in the Art Museum of Eastern Idaho Biennial Juried Exhibition, Idaho Falls, Idaho (2009).
Clare’s work is also featured in the 2017 exhibit at the LDS Church History Museum that features contemporary glimpses of landscapes found along the Mormon Trail. He joined artists John Burton and Bryan Mark Taylor who traveled along the Mormon Trail from 2011 to 2016 to paint the historical sites along the 1,300-mile route that the Mormon pioneers traveled between 1846 and 1868. Journal excerpts from the pioneers were paired with the 52 paintings for the exhibit. A book, Saints at Devil’s Gate: Landscapes along the Mormon Trail, has been published to accompany the exhibit.
According to an article in the Deseret News, as the artists learned more about the pioneers, they “discovered that Taylor's ancestors were part of the Martin Handcart Company and that Clare and Burton's ancestors were part of the rescue.”[1]
Clare and his wife live with their two children in Cache Valley.
