Sherry Cobb-Kelleher
Colorado-based painter, Sherry Cobb-Kelleher creates paintings showing moments of time from the western lifestyle she lives, working primarily in oil with secondary mediums of pencil and watercolor.
Growing up on a farm and ranch in Southwestern Colorado gave Sherry the intimate knowledge of her subject that continues to surround her today on the ranch where her studio has been for more than 25 years. Her work explores themes of the true western lifestyle, including ranching and everything that goes with it. Her subjects are animals, and people as well as the environment that surrounds them daily. She continually seeks out the moments that tell a story of the animals and people that inspire her. By combing a mastery of light with a strong foundation of drawing and composition, she has developed a unique style to bring to life the details of the world she loves.
Growing up, some of Sherry’s earliest memories were watching her mother and grandmother paint. Over the years they also patiently taught her how to look at the world with an artist’s eye, and to find her own voice by tapping into her deep and abiding love for animals.
Sherry’s work has received the Directors Choice Award and the Parton’s Award at the 2019 “Cowgirl Up!” Exhibition & Sale, along with the Patron’s Choice Award in 2022 at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum. Her most recent award includes the “Best Associate Award” at the Women Artists of the West's 52nd National Exhibition for her painting “Evening On Buttermilk Creek”. Sherry Cobb-Kelleher's work is also part of the Phippen Museum of Western Art's "Women Artists of the West" exhibition, the Montrose Center for Arts exhibition "Spring on the Ranch" and will be a part of Women Artists of the West's Invitational exhibition held at the Woolaroc Museum & Wildlife Preserve.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
I am part of the Western Heritage I celebrate in my realistic paintings. My experiences growing up and living on the ranch allow me to use the gifts God has given me. Through these gifts I authentically convey the complexity and the honor of the partnership between ranchers, the land and the animals he gave them to steward. Each day is a gift that I treasure as I strive to capture those special, but otherwise missed moments of ranch life. Moments that poignantly highlight the struggle for the tenuous and beautiful balance that we call life. I spend hours observing ranch life, seeking out the moments where lighting and contrast will set the mood and help tell the story of the bonds between people and animals. I bring these moments back to my studio and begin the journey of creating a piece on canvas.
As the latest in a long line of ranchers and farmers, I feel a deep and abiding connection to the land. Even now, as I look out my kitchen window over fields and herds made fertile by our endless hard work, sweat, and determination, it calls to me with a siren's song. This song is a constant and welcome reminder that everything that we hold dear does not come easy or cheap. That life is a constant struggle for a tenuous balance between the world as it is and the world as we wish it to be. Between our stubborn hopes and dreams for those we love and their own stubborn hopes and dreams.
My Ranch Life oil painting collection captures the men and women who tirelessly work the land in those pregnant moments between action and outcome. My Ranch Animals oil painting collection captures all the majesty and emotional range of the glorious creatures that make working the ranch such a special calling.