Where the buffalo roam and antelope play
Kelly Dangerfield, Freedom to Roam, oil, 32 x 46.
This story was featured in the September 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
IF YOU KNOW a little bit about Kelly Dangerfield, you probably know that the artist studied business and finance in college and worked in the investment industry for a time. And you might then presume that the well-crafted wildlife works he creates today are the product of an acutely left-brain-oriented approach to painting. But dive a little deeper into Dangerfield’s story, and you quickly realize that his thoughtfully rendered depictions are the result of much more than his knack for precision and organization.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Watchful Gaze, oil, 24 x 22.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Aspen Gold, oil, 24 x 20.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Gros Ventre King, oil, 20 x 14.
As a boy growing up near Salt Lake City, UT, Dangerfield relished the weekend adventures he and his father would take “high up into the mountains” to camp, fish, and observe wildlife up close. “That’s always stuck with me,” he says of those nostalgic memories. As a quiet, introverted child, young Kelly also had an affinity for spending long periods of time drawing and painting, and his grandmother, a painter herself, always provided him with creative projects when he visited. As for his subject matter, recalls Dangerfield, all of his early artworks had animals in them.
It seems only natural that the artist’s go-to subjects today are the moose, antelope, buffalo, and other wild creatures found throughout the West, and particularly in Yellowstone National Park, just a short drive from his home in southeastern Idaho. “The Rocky Mountains are definitely where my heart is,” says Dangerfield. “A huge part of what I do now,” he adds, “is getting outside and spending time observing and photographing animals in their natural habitats. Those experiences are what I’m trying to convey in my work—that awe that I feel in real life.”
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Morning Light at Antelope Flats, oil, 20 x 40.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, October Ritual, oil, 30 x 42.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Parting Glance, oil, 18 x 22.
In June, the artist was part of a major two-person show at Jackson, WY, gallery Astoria Fine Art, where five of his paintings sold within the first week—“a major milestone for me,” says Dangerfield, who left behind his finance career a decade ago to paint full time. Do his left-brain organizational skills still come in handy today? Absolutely, he says. “A lot of my work happens before I even put paint on the canvas,” he notes about his intensive process, which includes finessing his reference photographs in Photoshop. But, adds Dangerfield, who strives to capture the mood and magic of his wilderness observations, “I’m getting better at letting the paint fly a bit and being more expressive.” —Kim Agricola
representation
Astoria Fine Art, Jackson, WY; www.kellydangerfield.com.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Riverside Respite, oil, 26 x 40.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Winter’s Glow, oil, 22 x 34.
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- Kelly Dangerfield, Yellowstone Strut, oil, 20 x 34.
This story was featured in the September 2019 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2019 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.
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