Phil Epp: Online Exhibition

1 August - 30 September 2022

Modern West is pleased to present an Online Exclusive Exhibition of works by Phil Epp exploring atmospheric space in the Great Plains. The exhibition will be available online from August 1 to September 30, 2022.

I related more to cowboy spaces rather than cowboy activity. I portray the spaces that both mythical ideas and real life occupy.” - Phil Epp

Phil Epp was born and has spent most of his life on the Great Plains of the American West. With an emphasis on light and color, his paintings reflect this lifelong envelopment in open sky and landscape. Recognizable for his depiction of horses, western clouds, hints of generational human occupation via barns, and contemporary human involvement via wind turbines, Epp’s intention is to engage the viewer in this changing isolated west, but not dictate response. His work puts emphasis on the vast spaces of the Great Plains that are often overlooked — sage-covered flats, gentle mesas, quiet railroads, and still horses, to instill in his audience enamor with open land and to question the too-often sentiment that open spaces need to be filled in or else wasted.

Phil Epp was born in York, Nebraska in 1946. He was awarded the Kansas Governors Artist award in 1985. His paintings have shown at galleries in New Mexico, Chicago, Wyoming, Utah, Kansas City, and New York. Numerous monumental public works have been awarded honors including “8 wonders of Kansas Art” in 2009 and ”Water Tower of the Year” in 2010. In 2009, Phil was selected as a U.S. cultural ambassador to Kazakhstan with the Department of States’ “Art in Embassies” program. Epp’s studio is based in Kansas and he continues to travel, photograph, and paint empty western vistas.