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.
Elin Thomas • California • waow
Elin Thomas has been painting professionally in both acrylics and oils since 1983. She owns and rides a motorcycle, which she uses to travel to many gorgeous locations for camping, painting and loving life. Her dog Bessie is a companion on these journeys. She’s been called the “fastest brush in the West” when doing on-location painting, completing a painting in about 40 minutes.
Beki Tobiasson • Utah • waow
Beki Tobiasson is a self-taught artist working primarily in oil. She explores deep emotional and spiritual themes in her work. Her art works often tell stories based on personal or familial spiritual experiences; or depict biblical figures and spiritual concepts centered on faith and divine inspiration. Her landscapes and floral images are often symbolic narratives that reflect life challenges alongside hope and resilience.
Katrina Rae • Michigan • waow
Katrina Rae found her passion for creating art working in soft pastel, mixed media, and oils. She explores representational subjects, with a strong focus on culturally significant themes — especially those involving Native American traditions, people, and ceremonial regalia; western themes and animals. One of her notable technical innovations is using protective clear coatings that eliminate the need for glass over her pastel and mixed media works.
Denise Tabari • California • waow
Denise Tabari is an oil painter whose work blends elements of realism and abstraction. Her paintings are characterized by emotionally expressive subject matter and thoughtful use of color. She enjoys being outdoors and loves to paint and capture the realistic beauty of life.
Mary Ann Cherry • Idaho • waow
Mary Ann Cherry, past president of Women Artists of the West (2019-2020), has received the Bronze Medal at the Western Regional Oil Painters of America show, and the Best of the Masters award from the Women Artists of the West. She has been included in the permanent collection of several art museums. She is a Master member/Emeritus of the Women Artists of the West and Signature member of the Pastel Society of America. Cherry’s work is in the permanent collection of several art museums, including the Phippen Western Art Museum in Arizona and the Eastern Idaho Art Museum. She has had a one woman show at the Clymer Art Museum in Washington.
Syri Hall • Arizona • waow
Syri Hall is a contemporary visual artist known for her oil paintings and bronze sculptures. Plein air painting in the Sedona area has been Hall’s interest for the last several years. Her passion for the breathtaking paradise she lives in translates beautifully on canvas, captured with dynamic color, depth, and movement.
Cindy Sorley–Keichinger • Canada • waow
Cindy Sorley–Keichinger is a Canadian painter whose artwork focuses on realism depicting wildlife, nature, and landscape subjects. She prefers working in acrylics, but also works in oil and gouache. She is known for using vivid colors and capturing the essence of her subjects with a mix of observational detail and artistic vision. Sorley-Keichinger wants to bring viewers closer to nature and wildlife through her paintings. She believes that awareness leads to care.
Sally Delap–John • New Mexico • waow
Sally Delap-John is best known for her plein air landscapes and village scenes, especially those inspired by the light, architecture, and natural beauty of Northern New Mexico. Her work often captures the rugged landscapes, old adobe villages, and sweeping skies of the region in vibrant oil paintings. She works alla prima — that is, completing a painting in a single session, whether in the field or from life in a studio setting.
Christy Daniels • Montana • waow
Christy Daniels is a respected bronze sculptor known for her depictions of real life western and wildlife experiences. Her exceptional understanding of animal body language and emotions, not only flow through her pieces but help her tell a story forever preserved in a three– dimensional snapshot. As well as the body language and necessary conformation, Christy feels "the look in the eye" of her animals is key to drawing the viewer into the story.
Laara Cassells • Canada • waow
Laara Cassells is a contemporary Canadian artist noted for her paintings of figurative and pet portraits, wildlife, western themes, and equine subjects executed primarily in acrylic. Her style is grounded in realism blended with storytelling, often highlighting the emotional and individual character in both people and animals. She lives and works on a ranch in central Alberta. This rustic setting especially inspires her paintings of wildlife and western scenes.
Lana Dunlap • Oklahoma • waow
Lana Dunlap is a self-taught fine artist known for creating artworks inspired by the working West — including portraits and images of ranch life, livestock, and western themes. Her pieces often capture both the quiet strength and raw emotion in her subjects. She works in gouache, colored pencils, and charcoal on various substrates.
B. J. (Bonnie) Brentz • Arizona • waow
Bonnie attended college with the idea of becoming a classical painter in the manner of the old masters. The art school environment at that time didn't quite meet her desires. After some time off to paint on her own, she returned to college to combine her art interest with her science interest. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical communications. Bonnie went on to work in medical illustration and graphics for many years.
Cynthia Feustel • Colorado • waow
Cynthia Feustel is an oil painter primarily known for her portrait and figurative work. Whether capturing an introspective moment of a figure or the quiet stillness in an arrangement of treasured objects, the subjects in her paintings are sensitively rendered inviting viewers into the narratives she portrays. Having been a traditional portrait artist for 25 years, her attention to detail is evident. Adhering to the time-honored method of building up multiple layers of paint over an initial underpainting, her work merges the classical tradition of oil painting with images that reveal a fresh, contemporary expression.
Barbara Summers Edwards • Utah • waow
Barbara Summers Edwards, born and raised in Southeastern Idaho, is a fourth generation native of the American West. Graduating from Utah State University in illustration and working as a freelance illustrator, Barbara evolved as a fine art oil and watercolor painter. Commonly portraying figurative imageries, her painterly, realistic paintings have received numerous awards as they have been exhibited in international, national, regional and state juried, invitational, group and two person exhibits.
Barbara Fox • New York • waow
Barbara Fox is a painter recognized for watercolor and oil mediums; still life, figure, and floral subjects. Fox's meticulously crafted paintings are exhibited and collected internationally, have received numerous awards, and have been selected for publication in fine art books and magazines
Pat OBrien • Arizona • waow
Pat O’Brien is an Arizona artist known for her oil paintings of landscapes, western themes, desert imagery, old vehicles and animals. She often experiments with palette knife techniques, undercoat painting, color exploration, and expressive brushwork, and sometimes nearly complete abstraction of her subject.
Kadra Nevitt • Kansas • waow
Kadra Nevitt is a Kansas-based artist known for her evocative works centered on Western themes, outdoor life, natural landscapes and animals —most notably horses. She blends heartfelt subject matter with technically strong pastel and watercolor work to evoke the beauty and spirit of the American West. She is self-taught and has developed a reputation for life–like portrayals that lean toward soft realism with expressive technique.
L J McLoughlin • Arizona • waow
LJ McLoughlin is an artist and a working cowgirl. She creates oil and acrylic paintings. Her inspiration comes from the gritty scenery and western lifestyle she is surrounded by — historical ranches, working ranches, and the Native American land where the Apache and Navajos once lived, along with the special ambient light of Arizona, the color of the rocks, dirt, sky and the mountains. McLoughlin’s work reflects her authentic experience with ranch life—she grew up raising and training horses and continues to live and work on a ranch in southeastern Arizona with her husband.
Kathryn A. McMahon • Florida • waow
Kathryn A. McMahon is an American artist known for her impressionistic oil paintings, especially landscapes and marine scenes. Her work reflects traditional impressionist techniques — distinctive use of light, color, and short brushstrokes to capture the feel of nature. She has traveled all over the world, always taking her sketching or painting materials with her to inform and inspire her new output.
Jackie Penner • Washington • waow
Western life in its variety holds a special fascination for Jackie Penner. Her paintings reflect the strength of her feelings for the horses, wildlife, people and landscape of the true west.