Melody DeBenedictis is an American contemporary fine artist, painter, singer, songwriter, and advocate, best known for her expressive oil paintings that capture the rugged landscapes of the western United States and the wild mustangs that roam them.  She often travels across western rangelands to photograph and experience the wild firsthand, using these experiences as inspiration for her paintings.  DeBenedictis is an advocate for wild horses, using her art and music to bring awareness to their habitats and the challenges they face.

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.

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.

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.

The art of Molly Mellinger celebrates and explores the horse. Her connection to horses and horsemanship informs her understanding of movement, balance, and softness—qualities that naturally emerge in her work.  Mellinger is a multidisciplinary artist with a foundation in drawing, an emerging interest in sculpture, and a primary focus on oil painting.  Her paintings are vibrant and textural, rich with color and contrast. Each piece attempts to reconcile the tension between the precise and the abstract, where sensitively rendered forms emerge from painterly, expressive backgrounds. Artistic magic happens in the space between these contrasts. Calculated design and composition meet intuition and play, and the flow found in the process creates a dynamic harmony.  Mellinger strives to establish a sense of equilibrium—where control and fluidity align, much like the unity achieved between horse and rider.

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.

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. 

Ann Sherman is a contemporary painter and sculptor of horses and the human figure.  Her work blends representational accuracy with artistic expression and freshness — capturing the essence of her subjects.  She works in bronze, charcoal and oil.

Barbara Meikle is an artist who paints the simple world outside of her door in Tesuque, New Mexico. Meikle has been an artist from childhood, sketching the horses she loved and took care of in order to ride. After earning a BA in painting and printmaking at the University of Denver and studying watercolor at Cambridge University in England, she returned to New Mexico in 1990 to pursue her dream of owning a gallery. Barbara Meikle’s bright and vibrant work includes horses elegantly in motion or the expression of whimsical donkey or the dynamic beauty of the Western landscape.  Barbara’s artistic success has allowed her to give back to the animal community she loves by donating to equine rescues and animal shelters throughout the Southwest, including Equine Spirit Sanctuary in Taos and the New Mexico Wildlife Center in Española. 

Painting the Still Wild West...

Lynn is an award-winning Western artist who enjoys capturing the beauty and traditions of California ranch life. She is co-founder, president emerita, and director of communications for the Pastel Society of Southern California; vice-president, exhibition chair and Signature member of the Pastel Society of the West Coast; juried member of the Pastel Society of America; and a member of the California Art Club and Pacific Arts Group. Lynn is also the founder and past director of the Rejoice in Art! Fine Art Fair & Exhibition (2015-2019) held in Redondo Beach, California. As a four-year invited artist to the Tehachapi Arts Exhibition and Sale (2022-2025), Lynn's work has been featured in Western Art Collector and American Art Collector magazines. Her paintings have been acquired by many collectors over the past two decades.

Born on a farm in Fremont, Michigan, Kristy McNelly’s early days were spent riding horses and playing in the woods along the creek. Art has been a long pastime since childhood. It is that love for nature and animals that is still carried into her work today as an oil painting artist. An active volunteer and director of the AgriCultural Museum and Arts Center in Boerne, Texas. Since 2002, Kristy has been enjoying putting on events and antique tractor pulls. Kristy can also be seen on back roads around Texas driving her Seafoam Green antique 1950 Ford Truck called “Seabiscuit”.

From finding solitary sanctuary in the northern Wisconsin woods around Sandra’s childhood farm, to a career as a wildlife biologist, the natural progression after retirement has been to share the immense beauty and wonder of the natural world that she has experienced. “My hope is that others may come to understand it more deeply and be moved to protect it long after I am gone. In many ways, my art is a way of giving back—or perhaps giving forward—for all the gifts of seeing that I have been given.”

Explore a collection of wildlife paintings that reflect a lifelong connection to the natural world. Sandra creates art that honors the beauty, spirit, and individuality of wild animals. Each piece is a tribute to my deep reverence for wildlife and a commitment to artistic excellence.

Brenda Whicker is an impressionist painter of still life, horses and landscapes known for her painterly brushwork and her use of rich, dramatic color.  Farm life, changing seasons, and the effects of natural light are recurring themes and inspiration in her oil and acrylic paintings.  She is influenced by traditional still life painting from the Dutch Masters of the 1600s to French Academics of the 1900s. 

Lauri Ketchum's agricultural roots and life-long love affair with the American cowboy have fueled her concentration in Western Art.  Ketchum loves capturing the essence of hard–working ranchers and sharing the ranching lifestyle through her art.  She began her art career working in watercolor and acrylics before settling on oil as her preferred medium.  Ketchum is largely self-taught and has refined her skills through workshops with artists she admires. 

“As an artist rooted in the rugged beauty of Southwest Colorado, I strive to capture the dynamic interplay between humanity, nature, and the land.” Working primarily in oil on linen canvas or panels, Bobbe’s paintings are a harmonious blend of realism and expressionism—each brushstroke a deliberate choice to evoke both the physical presence and emotional resonance of her subjects. 

Bobbe’s compositions often feature birds in flight, antique trucks weathered by time, and the resilient animals and ranchers who define rural life. She is fascinated by the way strong lines and dynamic brushwork can convey motion, while careful attention to pattern, proportion, and rhythm brings unity to each scene. “Through these elements, I aim to freeze a fleeting moment—inviting viewers to feel the wind, sense the history, and connect with the enduring spirit of the West.”

Susan Eyer-Anderson is a California artist known for her oil and acrylic paintings that depict horses, wildlife, landscapes, and evocative western subjects. A realist artist, she often works from photographic references.  She uses rich color and pays careful attention to light, form, and detail.  She desires to capture both likeness and the heart and energy of her subjects.

Carol Lundeen is an oil painter specializing in animals, both wild and domestic.  Her style is representational.  She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art from Northwest Nazarene College, Nampa, Idaho.  She continued her studies with Robert Hagberg, Jay Moore, along with a host of other master artists. 

Becky Lucht is a scratchboard artist.  Her body of work reflects her ongoing love of animals, from horses and pets to wildlife, with a few fantasy creatures thrown in. They are generally rendered in the stark black and white of scratchboard, although she has been drawn to color versions of late.

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. 

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.