Working with pastel and color pencil to compose textured and saturated scenes, I’m drawn to the warm tones that evoke wide open spaces in the hazy, liminal light of the sun rising or setting. I draw on ecology, archetypal symbolism, and dreams to visually explore relationships humans have with one another and the world around them. Using distinctly Western imagery, I aim to eschew the modern “cowboy myth” of rugged individualism in favor of one steeped in interconnectedness.
Much of my art practice involves making space for grief and change, as well as playfulness and joy—honoring duality and mystery, light and dark, portals to the unknown. Juxtaposing heavy themes of grief and longing with vibrant color, I hope to capture a feeling, a character, a sense of place, woven into a spaciousness that allows viewers to imprint their own stories within the work.
—Kelsey Wickwire
Kelsey Wickwire is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist whose work is imbued with the landscapes, inhabitants, and stories of the regions she’s known up and down the American West. Having long worked as an illustration and graphic designer, she recommitted to her studio art practice in 2021, currently focusing on pastel and color pencil works on paper. She lives and works in the foothills of the Mission Mountains of Western Montana with her partner and two dogs.