WAOW Artistry of the West

The WAOW Artistry is slowly being built to provide a page on our site to promote each artist* You can search by name, location or by subject matter to find an artist.

*Artist Source Acknowledgment: Content on these pages is shared with permission and is sourced from the featured member artist’s website and professional biography. All rights remain with the artist.

Tina Garrett • Missouri • waow

Tina Garrett is a contemporary American oil painter and portrait/figurative artist known for her emotionally resonant, dramatic artworks.   Her contemporary realist paintings exude emotional presence and psychological depth through her evocative use of light, color and atmospheric quality.  Collectors and critics alike note her ability to blend technical excellence with a poetic sensibility.  She is recognized as one of the leading women in contemporary representational art. 

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Katherine Galbraith • New York • waow

Katherine Galbraith is a nationally recognized American artist known for her oil paintings focusing on figurative realism.  Her subjects include portraits, landscapes, still life, florals, and animal subjects.  Her portraiture clients have included notable figures such as President George H. W. Bush, and leaders in various professional fields.  She has established a strong reputation across the United States through exhibitions, awards, and representation in galleries nationwide.

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Marla Epstein • California • waow

Marla Epstein is an oil painter and sculptor.  Her art primarily features animals, both wild and domestic.  Her style blends realism with expressive presence.  She does not always seek to depict every detail, but strives to convey each creature’s character and vitality, rendered with strong presence and expressive technique, exploring their strength, beauty, and freedom.   Her process commonly involves observing, photographing, and researching the animal subjects before creating her artworks.  Many of her paintings emphasize a close, personal scale with the animals filling the canvas.

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Sarah Kennedy • Arizona • waow

Sarah Kennedy expresses her love of the natural world, the beauty of the desert, contemporary and traditional ranch life, rodeo, horses and figurative portraiture through her oil paintings.  A sparkle in the eye, the softness of a draped mane or curved neck, the light that creates drama or luminosity, color that brings excitement or serenity are elements that infuse her work to capture life and feeling.

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Barbara Ellis • Vermont • waow

Barbara Ellis is a classically-trained academic realist painter.  Her artwork celebrates the beauty of the natural world in all its variety — from delicate mare and foal scenes, to wildlife and rural animal scenes, to classical portraits and still lives.  Ellis seeks to capture the beauty, dignity, and personalities of her subjects in her oil and acrylic paintings.  Horses are an especially loved subject.  She has spent years working to perfect her craft to achieve anatomical accuracy while expressing equine fire and elegance.   

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Crystal DeSpain • Colorado • waow

Crystal DeSpain's paintings are a study of contrasts, where tension meets whimsy, technical precision meets poetic expression, and a compelling story lies alongside an unanswered question. She consistently marries classical representation with modern sensibilities, a duality that is central to her artistic vision. Her creative process is an intense and focused one, fueled by disciplined observation and a fearless embrace of trial and error.

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Lisa Rico • California • waow

Lisa Rico loves the immediacy of pastels and richness of the color possibilities achievable with them.   The face is her favorite subject — specifically, the faces of people from other cultures and countries encountered on her travels.  Rico also enjoys featuring local flora and fauna in colorful paintings as well as doing sanguine sketches and quick studies.

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Rose Collins • Arizona • waow

Rose Collins was enthralled with art, painting, and the western culture from her early childhood.  She relocated to Tucson, Arizona when she retired from her practice as a psychologist in New York.  She picked up a paintbrush and took a leap of faith into the unknown. That began a soul-searching decade of self-discovery, mentorship and successes in the very competitive art world, and paved the way to gallery representation. She loves being an established local Tucson Wildlife and Contemporary Southwest Artist.. 

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