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.
Mary Leslie • Colorado • waow
Mary Leslie’s paintings are the embodiment of her passion for ranching, wild spaces, and the grand vistas of the Sawatch and Sangre de Cristo mountain ranges where she lives and works. Her oil paintings combine the expansive feel of murals with the vibrant, lively colors she gravitates to. Her tendency to anthropomorphize animals grew out of her desire to share her artistic conversation between painting and subject. Leslie’s horses, donkeys, and dogs on the ranch frequently make cameo appearances along with the surrounding wildlife and flora of the desert, all of which reflect her deep-rooted affection for the inhabitants and untamed beauty of the West.
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.
Terry Denson • Florida • waow
Terry Denson creates paintings that are vibrant and realistic, with just a touch of abstraction. She seeks to capture the dramatic contrast between color saturated subjects and deep shadows.
Denson began her career as a full–time artist in 2003. She was initially self–taught, but has taken opportunities to study in workshops throughout the country with nationally recognized artists, and attended formal drawing instruction at several schools in Maryland, including the Maryland Institute, College of Art.
Nancy Walters • California • waow
Nancy Walters is an oil painter specializing in wildlife. She travels the world observing animals in the wild, as well as national refuges and parks in search of inspiration for her realistic paintings. This inspiration includes drawing from life and using photos she has taken during her many excursions. Once equipped with inspiration and images, Walters retreats to her studio at the Alameda Art Works in San Jose, California, where she can immerse herself in her painting process.
Dagmar Galleithner–Steiner • Washington • waow
Dagmar Galleithner-Steiner is a German born artist specializing in horse and dog portraits, and abstract expressionism. She moved to the United States in 2013 and found artistic success with her realistic portraits of dogs and horses. She was commissioned to paint the official portraits of six Del Mar Thoroughbred Club’s Pacific Classic winners.
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.
Kathy Gale • Idaho • waow
Kathy Gale creates contemporary art that is a fusion of impressionism and abstraction. She tells the stories of farmers, migrant workers, and ranch hands at work set against the sweeping vistas of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana. She uses a variety of media to achieve her characteristic broken color that lends richness and texture to her painting surfaces, including oils, acrylics, gouache, watercolor and pastels.
Molly Moore • Wyoming • waow
Molly Moore draws and paints the stunning beauty and wildlife of the West. She especially seeks to portray the souls of wild animals from real life experience. Molly divides her time between creating in her studio and exploring outdoors to observe wildlife, often painting en plein air to capture the beautiful habitat they live in.
Jennifer Wendt • Kansas • waow
Jennifer Wendt paints what she knows best—the animals and nature she enjoys every day operating her own small ranch. Cattle, horses, dogs, barn cats and wildlife are favorite subjects for this self–taught artist. She works from her home studio. She can otherwise be found outdoors riding one of her horses, tending cattle, checking fences, choring, or doing any of the other myriad tasks around the ranch. Wendt’s observant mind drinks in the surrounding inspiration and translates that into paintings that are exhibited in many of the top shows and exhibitions in the United States. She has garnered many awards, including several "Best of Shows", "Artist's Choices", and "People's Choices" along the way.
Jane Hunt • Colorado • waow
Jane Hunt is the 12th most awarded artist in the United States, according to Art Data Intel. This remarkable designation is the result of Hunt’s relentless pursuit of craft and unsurpassed beauty realized in her landscape paintings. She has lived in Colorado for thirty years, where she frequently paints en plein air to gather information for her larger studio works. She loves the American West and continues to be awed and inspired by the beauty surrounding her.
Karen Ann Hitt • Florida • waow
Karen Ann Hitt is an award-winning artist, classically trained at Parson’s School of Design in New York. That classic background is ever evident in her style, along with her love of capturing the figure and the effects of light in all of her scenes. Her paintings are noted to accentuate the effects of light, adding to their luminosity. Her landscapes and skyscapes reflect the essence of the landmark.
Sandra Haynes • Oregon • waow
It's hard to tell where Sandra Haynes is the happiest — in the studio or out in the wild — but in both places she feels very much at home. The child who loved to draw, immersed in the world of wildlife and the woods, grew into a mountain woman; one who shares, through her art and through her wisdom, the beauty of the world she knows. Haynes tells her stories of animals and the western lifestyle through her scratchboard etchings tinted with watercolors, oil paintings and drawings.
Christy Stallop • Texas • waow
Christy Stallop is a Texas-based artist working primarily in oil paint. Her work is rooted in storytelling, memory, and a strong sense of place. Through bold compositions and symbolic imagery, she explores themes of identity, nostalgia, and cultural heritage. Stallop often focuses on animals, everyday objects, and still life arrangements that feel both personal and universal—quiet moments that carry emotional weight, humor, or social commentary.
Sharon Standridge • Texas • waow
Sharon Brown Standridge is a noted painter depicting the life of the American west and nostalgic figurative scenes with great light and energy. Her western heritage runs deep. Her grandfather, father, his four brothers and a sister were known as the world’s youngest rodeo performers, Tex Brown and His Little Buckaroos. This rich western heritage informs Standridge’s ability to render the people and places of the west with vivid authenticity.
Diane Fechenbach • Colorado • waow
Diane Fechenbach’s artistic passion is dramatic light and shadow; and clean, saturated color. She is particularly interested in the effect of light on snow, trees, rocks and water. She works in a variety of media, including pastel, oil, and watercolor. Her subjects are varied, but she particularly enjoys painting en plein air.
Susan Temple Neumann • Texas • waow
Susan Temple Neumann is an oil painter who enjoys a more painterly style of realism, which helps keep the artwork fresh and "alive." Her art is born from a desire to capture the emotion or mood of a particular scene. A life-long fascination with native Americans, cowboys, horses, wildlife and the western landscape has fueled Neumann's art over the years and been the inspiration for her western pieces.
Sue Wipf • Minnesota • waow
Sue Wipf worked on her parents' farm and spent time pondering the skies and the beauty around her. That experience continues to influence her values and her perspective on the world around her. Her love for nature is expressed in her plein air paintings and studio work. The artworks of Vermeer, Sargent, Turner, and Sorolla have influenced her. She has studied at the Schroeder Studio and taken workshops from other master artists.
Jane Coulombe • California • waow
Jane Coulombe is an oil painter specializing in landscape and seascape scenes. She has spent most of her life in Southern California. Her love for this golden land is reflected in her paintings of its land and sea. One can feel the peace of early California and the beauty of the open land that remains, which she feels is our responsibility to preserve for future generations to enjoy.
Laura Pollak • North Carolina • waow
Laura Pollak is an award–winning, fulltime, professional fine artist. She works primarily in oil and pastel. Her art practice explores landscapes of the earth and constellations, as a continual search for her place in the universe. Her artworks run the gamut from realism to explorations of the abstract.
Mary Lou Pape • Kansas • waow
Mary Lou Pape’s passion for nature has made wildlife and the western way of life the primary focus of her artistic practice. Her primary mediums are oil, pastel and pencil. Travels to national parks, nature preserves, rodeos and ranches in America continually provide her with inspiration for her paintings of life in our remarkable country.