Two strong presences in the Salt Lake art scene share an exhibit this month at Phillips Gallery: Meri DeCaria and Nell Ivancich. DeCaria has served as gallery director and curator at Phillips for 18 years. Under her tenure, the gallery has grown to house the largest private gallery collection and representation of Utah artists, and has served as the setting for some of the most memorable local art openings during the period.

You might wonder if her own work might start to take on the quality of other artists,’ dealing with them as she does on a daily basis. But she has a remarkably singular aesthetic—a playful, colorful abstraction that can mask the depth of its compositional subtlety.

Ivancich is a good match for DeCaria’s work.

She earned her master’s of arts at the University of Utah in 1988 and has exhibited here extensively even as an expatriate living in California. Her abstract expression is more in the manner of Pollock and De Kooning.

Meria DeCaria/Nell Ivancich paintings @ Phillips Gallery, 444 E. 200 South, 801- 364-8284, Sept 18.-Oct. 9.