Mixed-media artworks are a mixed bag: The disparate elements can become a hodgepodge, or one element in the mix, like paint or photography, can overpower the others. Anthony Granato has a unique ability to combine pencil, brush, camera and computer into something that, while not seamless—that wouldn’t be very challenging to the eye—appears deliberate, if not inevitable, the process of focused and practiced technique that still demonstrates plenty of passion (“Almost There” is pictured.

With a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration and a split minor in painting and graphic design, Granato crafts works that demonstrate a mastery of all those disciplines, which helps his work avoid another common pitfall of mixed-media art—being so busy and thrown-together that there’s no room for the artist’s personal style. His style is dramatic and outspoken, yet with notable subtlety of color and use of the materials. Fifteen years of professional experience as an illustrator have tempered his highly disciplined hand, as he uses the iconography of the familiar to create something slightly subversive.

Here, he is free to express his artistic personality unfettered, his process still oriented toward its end. Granato explains, “The process in which I create my art is much like developing a riddle ... start with the answer and work backward. I begin with the final product, then figure out how to make it happen.” The final results are far from a happy accident, but rather the felicitous consequences of his tireless experimentation.

Anthony Granato: New Works @ Utah Arts Alliance Gallery, 127 S. Main, 801-651-3937, through April 30, free. UtahArts.org