Artists to Watch | Brandon Bailey
“It’s a surreal experience that hasn’t really hit home yet,” says Brandon Bailey about his recent induction into the esteemed Cowboy Artists of America organization. Bailey’s success story is firmly rooted in his love of the West and his desire to express it.
Artists to Watch | Priya Ahlawat
Priya Ahlawat’s thirst for knowledge and her extensive travels throughout Europe, North America, and Asia from a young age provide the well-heeled foundation from which her current paintings—moody, dimly lit interiors of historic cafés—are inspired and created.
Artists to Watch | Chris Manwaring
Chris Manwaring approaches his expressive paintings with boundless curiosity and a fascination for the unknown. The Utah artist experiments with light, color, and brush strokes to showcase landscapes, wildlife, portraits, and figures.
Artists to Watch | Natasha Ramras
For Natasha Ramras, living in the Pacific Northwest with easy access to nature’s bounty offers endless inspiration for her impressionistic oil, watercolor, and pastel works. She's especially captivated by painting the transparent quality of water and the way the light plays on and beneath its surface.
Artists to Watch | Yer (Za) Vue
Subject matter is no longer the primary driver of Oregon artist Yer (Za) Vue’s work. Instead, the medium and its application take precedence in her masterfully impastoed, abstracted work.
Artists to Watch | Amanda Cowan
Amanda Cowan's innate love of the West brings authenticity to her paintings. A self-taught artist working in both oil and watercolor, she paints cowboys, cowgirls, ranchers, and animals as only someone intensely familiar with that lifestyle can.
Artists to Watch | Whitney Gardner
In her depictions of the Southwest desert, Whitney Gardner creates both visual and vicarious experiences for viewers, in which scenes featuring rugged terrain are accompanied by a sense of the heat, wind, dust, and aridity present in those moments.
Artists to Watch | Donnie Tapp
Rural eastern Idaho native Donnie Tapp's current series of work focuses on scenery around his hometown. “It’s a place I had to learn to love,” Tapp admits. "A wide-open and sometimes even empty plain that inhabits the space between more broadly appealing valleys and mountain ranges."
Artists to Watch | Larry DeGraff
About a decade ago, Larry DeGraff closed his computer for the last time as an illustrator at Hallmark Cards and picked up his paintbrush to pursue a full-time career as a fine artist. Now he can confidently say that he gets to do what he does best every day.