Utiger's paintings, painstakingly executed in his own very distinctive pointillist style, feature a somewhat fantastical world, though the subject matter is very much based on Vermont landscape. The artist is a seventh generation Vermonter residing in the town of Peru, in the house in which his grandfather lived and raised sheep. Utiger's paintings begin with a pencil drawing, after which watercolors are carefully applied, before the final labor-intensive process of using a quill pen dipped in colored inks to add minute dots. The effect is singular, and very much the artist's own.

"Sharing the landscape is an important theme in much of my work. In many of my paintings you will see a single house or a cluster of houses surrounded by abundant, well-kept fields. That's because I feel strongly that a small community of people living and working together in harmony with the land can flourish, achieving the closest thing there may be to heaven on earth. The recurring image of settlements surrounded by beautiful rolling hills connects with the biblical image of New Jerusalem, the "shining city on a hill." By returning to this image again and again, I am affirming my belief that peaceful coexistence with the land is still possible."