Grant Redden’s paintings of the people, animals, and terrain of the West have a gentle, almost tender luminosity. Even in portraying the rugged trappings of ranch life and the features of an often unforgiving landscape, his works have an intimate, deeply attentive quality that strikes...
In 1987, Kevin Macpherson joined a group of artists who became known as the Plein Air Painters of America. Under the auspices of the Catalina Art Association, they painted as the Impressionists did: outdoors and from life. Serving as the organization’s first president in 1996,...
David Phelps sculpts mostly larger-than-life yet realistic bronzes of humans and animals that often seem to rise up from or sink below the surfaces on which they’re displayed. He traces such distinctive works back to his boyhood on the farm his grandfather first settled in...
Rebecca Haines resolutely resists the labels many people feel inclined to attach to an artist’s work. One glance at her dreamlike, colorful, and boldly delineated images of wild creatures, drawn in oil sticks on wood panels, gives a good sense of why. “I resist the...
One day last autumn, Jim Bortz was fly fishing on the Shoshone River near his home in Cody, Wyoming. “I got so wrapped up in it,” he recalls, “that I suddenly looked up, and there was a grizzly standing on the opposite bank. He started...
Judith Brunko conveys deeply felt connections to the Native American dancers and other traditionally clad figures she captures with spirited verisimilitude through oil paintings created in a style she describes as “contemporary impressionism, rendered accurately but painted loosely.” Her 2020 work The Protector, for example,...
Robin Cole enthusiastically declares herself “primarily an oil painter now,” but she quickly adds that all her work continues to be “very much informed by my original love affair with drawing.” Both elements come dynamically into play in recent works the artist describes as “vignettes...
In 1991, just as his career was about to take flight, Tucker Smith created a 10-by-12-inch painting of a scene he’d observed at the Kentucky Derby. Capturing the commotion before the post parade, Derby Day depicts horses and riders entering the field in front of...
What can we learn about our shared region by examining the expressions of others? What historical perspective or peaceful moment does an artist call to our attention? How does an architect design a building that better connects us to our environment or improves our daily...
It was the day of Louisa McElwain’s annual studio tour. Organized each summer by Evoke Contemporary, the event would see invited collectors and friends gather for a barbecue, painting demonstration, and tour of the artist’s studio and small ranch just north of Santa Fe. The...