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.
Karen Storm • Colorado • waow
Karen Storm is a contemporary oil painter whose work focuses on capturing the essence of nature and landscape in an impressionist style, emphasizing color, light, and atmosphere in a way that reflects her personal connection to the outdoors. She often paints en plein air to immerse herself in the shifting shapes, colors, and light of the landscape.
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
Simone B. Silva • New Mexico • waow
Simone B. Silva is a contemporary landscape artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is known for her plein air and studio oil paintings that capture the subtle interplay between history, cultural heritage, and the light, atmosphere and beauty of the American Southwest. She works in oil, primarily on panels. Her style tends to realism with painterly interpretation.
Barbara A. Parish • California • waow
Barbara A Parish is a professional watercolor artist, workshop teacher and author of watercolor instruction books. Her colorful, sensitive paintings of flowers and landscapes are executed in the tradition of classical realism using time–honored techniques.
Jude Tolar • Oklahoma • waow
Jude Tolar's art is lyrical and representational. She celebrates beauty and joy in the world. She's known mainly for floral and tree portraits outdoors and glass subjects indoors. She prefers to work from life, using mostly Terry Ludwig soft pastels on Art Spectrum ColourFix paper. She began using pastels as a way to study color and work easily en plein air, and immediately loved the results. Tolar has exhibited in galleries, invitational group and solo shows; her work is in collections across the United States and abroad. She also demonstrates her pastel techniques and teaches pastel workshops on various subjects.
Jan McKay • Oklahoma • waow
Jan McKay feels her paintings of wildlife, pets, and nature, are the perfect subjects to display the beauty of creation, and the love we have been given from above. She was an interior designer for 26 years. This experience developed her natural eye for beauty and design. This skill translates into her paintings.
Yun Wei • California • waow
Yun Wei is a representational painter who uses traditional oil painting techniques in all of her work. She is deeply inspired by Dutch Golden Age still life masters such as Willem Kalf and Willem Claeszoon Heda—artists known for their rich textures, finely rendered objects, and quiet emotional resonance. She has received awards for excellence and best-in-show in various juried exhibitions. Her work has also been featured in respected art publications such as Western Art Collector, Art of the West, Southwest Art, and Fine Art Connoisseur.
Pamela Mangelsdorf • Arizona • waow
Although I have been painting professionally since 2005, my excitement for art has spanned many more years. In particular I have enjoyed drawing and painting animals – wild and domestic, large or small since my college days. It is a joy for me to be able to depict wildlife in their natural surroundings.
Nearly all of my paintings are in oil or watercolor. Over the years, I have developed techniques that suit my style of realism. I try to portray each of the animals in as realistic a manner as possible…the details of their feathers, the colors of their coats, and the brilliance of their eyes. There is nothing so penetrating and expressive as an animal’s eyes which is why I concentrate on faithfully depicting that window into their world.
Andria Sullivan • California • waow
Andria Sullivan is an American visual artist known for her representational paintings that focus on wildlife, botanical subjects, landscapes, and dream-like scenes. She creates her art mainly with oil paints and pastels. She explores scale, color, and composition freely, sometimes placing her subjects in imaginative or unexpected contexts.
Grace Schlesier • California • waow
Grace Schlesier is a well-established American artist whose impressionistic oil paintings celebrate the beauty, mood and light of the natural world. Her work focuses on western landscapes, coastal scenes, wilderness areas, rivers, and the sea, with an emphasis on the feeling and atmosphere of a place. Her paintings are noted for a soft, luminous quality that evoke peace and tranquility. Schlesier’s work draws on her direct experience with nature and a long career painting both en plein-air and in studio.
Vanessa Rusczyk • California • waow
Vanessa Rusczyk paints the unique and resilient flora of desert landscapes. She creates realistic yet interpretive oil paintings that emphasize the character of Western flora through bold, heightened color, strong value contrasts, and compositions with minimal backgrounds, allowing plant life to take center stage in her floral portraits. She works out of her studio in suburban San Diego, surrounded by native chaparral and open spaces that grace her artworks. Her latest wilderness explorations have expanded to include the Colorado Plateau and high deserts of New Mexico. Her artistic journey reflects her deep connection to the southwestern landscape and her commitment to showcasing the often over–looked natural beauty of its plant life. She aims to inspire appreciation and protection of the plants that thrive in these wild spaces.
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.
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.
Reenie Kennedy • California • waow
Reenie Kennedy is an award-winning acrylic artist. Her work reflects her love for wildlife with an emphasis on bird art. She enjoys combining wildlife with her exquisite floral and ocean inspired backdrops, along with a touch of humor. She believes a sense of humor in painting is one of the best ways to lift the spirits.
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
Linda Star Landon • Arizona • waow
Linda Star Landon, has always created art in one form or another. Her oil paintings are distinguished by her signature style use of vivid colors and bold textures created using a palette knife technique.
Landon’s creations have been exhibited at juried art shows and have been recognized as Best of Show and won awards. The artworks are loved by their collectors all over the United States. Some have gone to other countries including Canada and China.
Leslie Lambert • Idaho & Washington • waow
Leslie Lambert (also known as Leslie Redhead) is a celebrated artist known for her innovative poured watercolors. With a keen eye for detail and a mastery of color, Lambert skillfully pours and manipulates pigments on paper, resulting in stunning and dynamic compositions of the West. Her artwork, characterized by vibrant hues, has garnered widespread acclaim and has been exhibited in prestigious galleries and exhibitions worldwide. Lambert’s ability to push the boundaries of traditional watercolor painting has established her as a trail blazer in the arts.