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.

Nori Thorne • Arizona • waow

Nori Thorne is an award–winning pastelist celebrated for her depictions of the people, artifacts, lifestyle and the land of the American Southwest.  She works to capture a strong sense of place and secrets revealed through the mastery of her medium — capturing changing light and color with formidable drawing skill.  She is undaunted by the challenges of working en plein air to render her desert scenes.  Cayoneering, which always calls for endurance while packing in her pastels and panels, is just part of the joy of making art about this rugged region.   She is equally at home with revealing the unique beauty of the lifestyle and peoples of the American Southwest with sensitive feel and authenticity.

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Reneé Marz Mullis • New Mexico • waow

Reneé Marz Mullis is mesmerized by the pastel stick’s strength of color and brilliancy.   She paints southwestern landscapes, interiors and exteriors, florals, and still lifes, both in the studio and en plein air.  She most enjoys the multitude of challenges in conveying a strong sense of luminosity and atmosphere in her work. 

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Corey Garman • Arizona • waow

Corey Garman paints the sweeping landscapes of the southwest in oils.  She views landscape painting as a doorway that is open to let the viewer see inside and encourages one to feel that place, smell it and maybe even hear it.  She creates her works primarily in the studio with an occasional venture into plein air. 

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Terri Wagner • Oklahoma • waow

Terri Wagner is an award-winning artist living on a small farm in Kiefer, Oklahoma. At four years old she was drawing horses, seeing the world through an artist's eye. Her love of horses, animals and the outdoors inspires her to paint, responding to the amazing world around her. "I like to paint realism, but strive to keep it loose with bold brushstrokes and vibrant colors."

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Kelly Sooter • Utah • waow

Many say that Kelly Sooter’s paintings are peaceful - depicting calm in the midst of a storm, or show where wild mountains or wilderness meets with the more tamed prairie or farmland.  When viewing her landscapes, she hopes you begin to recall landscapes from your past that have been buried deep down for too many years – still waiting to come to the surface.

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