WAOW Artistry of the West

The WAOW Artistry is slowly being built to provide a page on our site to promote each artist. This project began late summer 2024. We have over 300 members to load here on their pages. You can search by name, location or by subject matter to find an artist.

Laurie Sorkin • Colorado • waow

Laurie Sorkin is a contemporary oil and pastel painter of the diversity of life.   Her subjects include people in every day activities, flowers, landscapes, old vehicles, and architecture, all marked by sensitive and visually pleasing compositions.

Sorkin actively exhibits her work, primarily in the Colorado region.  She is a juried associate member of Women Artists of the West, and a member of Art Students League of Denver and Plein Air Artists Colorado.

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Brandi Donan • Tennessee • waow

Brandi Donan is a contemporary impressionist artist known for her expressive oil paintings and fine art work. Her style focuses on capturing the essence of life with dynamic brushwork and expressive energy, aiming to evoke strong emotional responses from viewers. She creates both figurative and representational work, often in oil but also producing drawings and pastels.

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Mary Jabens • Utah • waow

Mary Jabens lives in Southern Utah and her passion for art is fueled by the scenes around her.   She seeks to communicate with the viewer the joy she sees in nature — not only the grand views, but also closer observations of her subjects that others may not see. Her use of color, texture and brushwork convey the beauty of the land while she endeavors to show the immediacy of the moment.  

Jabens strives to have a “plein air state of mind” when painting in her studio.  It has allowed her to hone her artistic skills and focus on replicating in her artworks the living senses of seeing, feeling, sound and smell that she experienced painting outdoors.  

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Kathy LeJeune • Louisiana • waow

Kathy LeJeune is a self-taught artist who works in pastel, graphite and charcoal.  Her drawings reflect the important role horses played in her early life — if she wasn’t riding them, she was drawing them.  She spent wonderful childhood days riding at local playdays and along country roads or in pastures.  Raising a family and teaching in Louisiana schools necessitated a break from drawing, but she found comfort and joy when she picked up her pencils again during the Covid pandemic.  She has not put them down since.  Her artistic output includes sympathetic drawings of horses and their pivotal role in western life and rodeo competitions.  Cowboys and cows get some gritty starring roles, too. 

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Burneta Venosdel • Oklahoma • waow

Burneta Venosdel is a national, award-winning bronze sculptor and pastel painter.  Many of her sculpture subjects are inspired by her surroundings and life on her Oklahoma ranch.  She paints the landscapes of western Oklahoma and the wildflowers from the mountains west of Gunnison that she has trod for over 20 years.   

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Cecy Turner • Texas & Colorado • waow

Cecy Turner is an award-winning artist who works in both watercolor and oil.   She prefers to paint en plein air, and does so almost daily   since she began spending half of every year in Colorado.   The effects of light and atmosphere are her favorite things to capture in paint.

Turner graduated from Vanderbilt University and did post-graduate study in art at University of North Texas.  She has additionally studied under numerous accomplished artists in both oil and watercolor

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Shuli Wang • Illinois • waow

Shuli Wang is an accomplished artist residing in the vibrant Chicago metropolitan area. She was born in Inner Mongolia, China.  She exhibited exceptional talent and an unwavering passion for the world of drawing and painting from an early age.  Wang possesses a remarkable versatility, working fluently with an array of artistic mediums including pencil, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, and oil. Her artistic style can be aptly described as impressionistic realism, where vibrant brushwork often reminiscent of traditional Chinese freehand paintings infuses life into her creations.  The subjects of her work are as diverse as her mediums, spanning landscapes, still life, and portraiture.

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Dagmar Galleithner–Steiner • Washington • waow

Dagmar Galleithner-Steiner is a German born artist specializing in horse and dog portraits, and abstract expressionism.  She moved to the United States in 2013 and found artistic success with her realistic portraits of dogs and horses.  She was commissioned to paint the official portraits of six Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s Pacific Classic winners. 

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Barby Schacher • Washington • waow

Barby Schacher is a Western Fine Artist whose work is deeply rooted in the traditions of ranch life, horses, and the rugged spirit of the American West.  She was raised in a world where horseback riding, rodeos, and cattle drives shaped her experiences.  She channels these influences into her original, detailed, pastel paintings of Western life that are both authentic and heartfelt.  These artworks tell the timeless stories of everyday ranch life, celebrating both its beauty and grit.

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Diane Fechenbach • Colorado • waow

Diane Fechenbach’s artistic passion is dramatic light and shadow; and clean, saturated color.  She is particularly interested in the effect of light on snow, trees, rocks and water.  She works in a variety of media, including pastel, oil, and watercolor. Her subjects are varied, but she particularly enjoys painting en plein air.

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Judy Fairley • Washington • waow

Judy Fairley is pastel and scratchboard artist, living and working in Washington.  She grew up in Clarkston, where she and her twin sister helped on the family's horse and cattle ranch. Her experiences while growing up provided her with endless inspiration that she has shared in her numerous artworks shown and exhibited throughout the United States and Canada.

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Laura Pollak • North Carolina • waow

Laura Pollak is an award–winning, fulltime, professional fine artist.  She works primarily in oil and pastel.  Her art practice explores landscapes of the earth and constellations, as a continual search for her place in the universe.  Her artworks run the gamut from realism to explorations of the abstract.

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Mary Lou Pape • Kansas • waow

Mary Lou Pape’s passion for nature has made wildlife and the western way of life the primary focus of her artistic practice.  Her primary mediums are oil, pastel and pencil.  Travels to national parks, nature preserves, rodeos and ranches in America continually provide her with inspiration for her paintings of life in our remarkable country.  

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Christine Obers • California • waow

Christine Obers is a realist artist working in pastel, colored pencils and oils.  She creates beautifully sensitive paintings of animals, people, landscapes and still life.  She likes to use photographs for her initial inspiration.  She then edits and enhances them to create pleasing compositions that create rich emotional connections with her subjects.

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Landscapes, Skyscapes, Pastels WAOW . Landscapes, Skyscapes, Pastels WAOW .

Katherine Irish • New Mexico • waow

Katherine Irish made a conscious decision to contribute beauty to the world through art when she returned to New Mexico. The infinite variety of color and abstract patterns found in New Mexico skies offer a limitless source of inspiration. Cloud composition and colors are ephemeral. However, what is constant is that the beginning and end of each day is marked by the rising and setting of the sun. The beauty found in the skies inspires us.  Irish’s paintings are an effort to bring focused attention on our shared connection with the natural order.

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Natalie Campbell • California • waow

Natalie Campbell captures the beauty of the world around her, primarily working with pastels on black paper.  She infuses each piece with the same passion and energy that drives her. Despite being new to the art world, she is already a nationally award-winning artist and has shown her work locally, nationally and internationally. Natalie looks forward to continuing to exhibit her artwork around the country

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Yvonne Bonacci • California • waow

Yvonne was born and raised on a cattle ranch.  Horses and art have always been her passion.  It's no surprise horses and people are her favorite subject.  Many of her works are done on commission. She has taught workshops in the community for over 25 years.  She works in a variety of mediums, and has won many awards over the years.  Yvonne was inducted into the Elk Grove Community Hall of Fame for her accomplishments as an artist in 2020.  Her paintings have hung at the California State Capital and at Washington D.C.

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Denise Horne-Kaplan • North Carolina & Florida • waow

Denise Horne-Kaplan started her professional career in 1983.  She has participated in exhibits and juried shows — over 74 national and International juried shows and eight solo shows to date.  She is in six international publications, including being a featured centerfold Artist with thirteen paintings in the 1999 Winter Issue of Watercolor magazine.  Horne-Kaplan is a signature member, one of only 130 in the country, of the Miniature Artists of America. 

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