The psychedelic goodies that cast a spell in the middle of Kent Christensen’s paintings possess hypnotic seduction. In “Sugar,” his latest exhibit at the Kimball Art Center, they hover in the skies above mountains or sit by the seashore, but always jut forward, catapulted by glowing yellows, pinks and blues, commanding attention. Christensen calls it “high calorie art.”

Part of his vision is that of a painter who enjoys bold color and texture: the vivid hues of the dyes used in packaging and hard-candy shells, the soft sides of donuts and crumbling cookies. “This is the work of an artist at the height of his powers,” notes Kathleen Carricaburu, the Kimball’s exhibition director.

Christensen, born in Los Angeles, attended the Art Center College of Design before moving to New York in 1988, where he launched a career as an editorial illustrator for publications like Time, Sports Illustrated, The Chicago Tribune and The Baltimore Sun. Completing his graduate study at the University of Utah in October of 2005, he has since been concentrating on his solo shows in London, Sundance and the Alta Club in Utah.

The other part of his agenda is one that feeds on American indulgence, and more specifically, on the alarming consumption of sweets in one of his home states. Good Humor conducts its important product testing in Utah, he says, and for good reason — its citizens are said to consume more sugar than any other state in the country. The EnergySolutions Arena, he notes, sells more ice cream than most any other arenas in the country.

Out to coffee in New York City, his home for the past 20 years (he also keeps a summer home at Sundance Resort), he recalls a friend, noticing his voracious consumption of sweets as they sipped their cocktails, sizing him up.

“One day she said to me, ‘I’ve figured you out: Sugar is the Mormon heroin,” he remembers. “Ever since then, I’ve realized, ‘Yeah, it’s pretty true. Sugar’s the Mormon heroin and we don’t even really know it, because it’s such a part of us. It’s our vice.”

But it’s not that he’s shaking his finger in disapproval — after all, he too has a sweet tooth. Instead he views it as “a perfect vehicle for both celebrating and satirizing my own people.” Like 15th and 16th century artists whom he admires, he is using his art as a chance to hold the mirror up.

On his Web site, kentchristensen.com, he explains, “I think of my food paintings as a kind of ‘Praise of Mormon Folly’ in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Pieter Aertsen, who turned a rhetorical device (invented by Erasmus of Rotterdam with his book “The Praise of Folly”, published in 1509) into a pictorial device which was employed in such paintings as Bruegel’s ‘Land of Cockaigne’ and Aertsen’s ‘The Praise of Pancakes.’ In these paintings, as in Erasmus’ writings, viewers are seduced into sympathizing with persons or things they would normally shun or hold in low esteem in order to make them aware of their own failings.

“Unlike Erasmus, however, I am not interested in making moral judgments or in aiding a fresh Reformation. It is simply an interesting, engaging and hopefully enlightening way for me to examine some of the intrinsic humor and irony of this eccentric and peculiar culture.”

Christensen says originally he painted many of his sugary objects by candlelight, focusing directly on the 16th century tradition and formal composition. After a trip to Denmark, he began to integrate bleak deserted contexts behind his candies and cakes, and distinct horizon lines. The settings exaggerate the strong colors of the sweets so that they appear to emerge like a mirage or an oasis in the middle of an emptied desert, floating absurdly like an apple in a Rene Magritte painting.

The powerful personal response people have to the paintings in “Sugar” and other exhibits since he began painting candies in 2004 has been surprising to Christensen.

“People react to paintings of food in really intense ways, more so than I had expected,” he explains, “especially to paintings of sugar, because sugar-based foods tend to coincide with idealized happy memories. There are a lot of associations with holidays and summertime — Easter candy or Valentine’s Day hearts. You think about the food, how it tastes. It’s very specific.”

Meet Kent Christensen

Who: Kent Christensen, a painter whose exhibit, “Sugar,” will be in the Badami Gallery at the Kimball Art Center through May 25.

When: April 25 at 5 p.m.

What: A discussion, free and open to the public, entitled, “The Dessert Landscape,” about Christensen’s exhibition and questions about our collective “misplaced guilt, the nature of spirituality and community.”

Where: At The Kimball Art Center, at 638 Park Ave.

For more information: call (435) 649-8882 or visit kimball-art.org on the World Wide Web. The galleries are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, closed Tuesdays and open from noon to 5 p.m. on weekends.