Art Gallery: Stephanie Hartshorn

“My great-grandparents died during the Dust Bowl,” Stephanie Hartshorn says when asked about her connection to the land she depicts in her iconic works. “Knowing the history of this American landscape and how generations of my family’s history are woven throughout always figures into my work. My desire is to express a deep connection to the land and community that shaped our present way of life here in West.”

A signature member of the American Impressionist Society, Hartshorn has developed a unique style and approach to oil painting. Working on birchwood panels, she is able to bring texture and depth to her work using a combination of brushes and scrapers. “There are affects I can get painting on wood that I can’t get on any other surface,” she says. “I’ve discovered ways to work with nontraditional tools to achieve the emotion I’m trying to convey.”

Stored Roots, 48 x 48 inches, oil on wood panel.

Raised in Colorado, Hartshorn took a circuitous route to a fine art career, starting out at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden and believing her path was engineering. Her freehand drawing in a drafting class impressed her professor, who told her “If the engineering thing doesn’t work out for you, consider the arts.” A year and a half later she changed schools and earned a degree in architecture from the University of Colorado Boulder. After becoming a mom of two, she stayed home for several years; afternoons creating with her girls led to her taking up painting. But necessity eventually lead her back to work as an architect.

“Then out of the blue I invited to a plein air event in northern Wisconsin—the landscape was just stunning!” Hartshorn recalls. “I began driving to that yearly event taking different back roads to see new properties and observe the changing details of barns from Colorado to the Midwest. I couldn’t get enough. As a painter, I love barns for their form, color, and character. As an artist, my work is fueled by familial stories of tenacity—human and nature—through the passage of time.”

Blue Rise, 48 x 60 inches, oil on wood panel.

A fifth-generation Coloradoan, Hartshorn is deeply aware of the changes that have taken place in the West and seeks to communicate that in her work. “My grandfather wrote his life’s story—my dad recently gifted a copy to me. Reading about things that happened bring deeper resonance to my work; my grandfather’s stories are really quite special.”

Hartshorn also thinks about women in the West and how difficult life was for past generations. She tries to be authentic to that reality in her work, especially as a female artist showing in Western genre shows. “Themes in these shows are typically very male-centric. There are fewer female artists in the field and fewer still who paint architecturally. There are times that people are surprised to discover that I am a woman,” she says. “And I’m OK with that.”

See Stephanie Hartshorn’s work at studiohartshorn.com; the Brinton Museum in Big Horn, Wyoming, August 31 – October 20; the Abend Gallery and Gallery 1261 in Denver; Breckenridge Gallery in Breckenridge, Colorado; and Davis & Blevins in Saint Jo, Texas. 

From our October 2024 issue.

HEADER IMAGE: Red’s Bale, 18 x 36 inches, oil on wood panel

 PHOTOGRAPHY: Courtesy of the artist