"In October, I will be having my annual one person show at the Dana Gallery in Missoula. I've been with this prestigious gallery for 20 years now. I just delivered these pieces to them. This collection is my interpretation of the modern American West. My depiction of Montana is a place where ranch life, open land, horses, cattle, and tradition meet contemporary color and abstraction.

I grew up in Montana surrounded by cattle and horses, and these subjects have always felt deeply familiar to me. Rather than painting the West as something nostalgic or belonging to the past, I want these paintings to feel alive, luxurious, and distinctly of today.

Across the collection, animals emerge and disappear within layers of color, texture, and movement. Some are immediately recognizable; others ask the viewer to spend time with the painting and allow the figures to slowly reveal themselves. The unexpected blues, turquoise, coral, gold, and deep blacks are less about describing exactly what I see and more about painting what the landscape and animals feel like to me.

I love seeing these pieces placed in contemporary interiors because it reinforces something I believe about Western art: the West doesn't have to be rustic. It can be sophisticated, bold, modern, and beautifully at home beside stone, leather, adobe, steel, or clean architectural lines.

Ultimately, these paintings are about the animals, landscapes, and way of life that shaped me and my desire to carry the spirit of the West forward in my own visual language."

-Kira Fercho