Celebrating Women’s Voices in Western Art - Our Artists at Cowgirl Up! 2025

At Sorrel Sky Gallery, we are thrilled to celebrate the achievements of three of our exceptional artists — Maura Allen, Lisa Danielle, and Linda Glover Gooch — as they take part in the 20th Cowgirl Up! This prestigious annual exhibition, held this year from March 28 to May 25, 2025, at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, shines a well-deserved spotlight on the leading female artists of the Western genre.

Since its founding in 2005, Cowgirl Up! has been a groundbreaking platform in the traditionally male-dominated world of Western art, elevating women’s voices and perspectives. Each year, this show highlights the depth and diversity of contemporary Western artistry, offering a fresh and powerful look at the American West.

We are incredibly proud to see Maura, Lisa, and Linda among this elite group of artists, bringing their unique visions and masterful craftsmanship to such an important stage. Whether you’re a dedicated collector or discovering Western art for the first time, this exhibition is an opportunity to experience the talent and storytelling that define Cowgirl Up! 

Enjoy as we highlight each of these remarkable artists and their remarkable work.

Maura Allen portrays the American West-ranching life, cowboys, cowgirls, Native Americans, and the native flora of the landscape with rich texture, vibrant color, and dynamic patterns to achieve a contemporary, cinematic quality that is her signature painting style. With 35+ years as a black and white photographer and two decades as a painter, Maura brings unique vision and skill to her work. To begin her creative process, Maura looks directly into the sun, drawing inspiration from a stark silhouette and obscured details. She uses wood, steel, and glass as her surfaces.

Maura's work is included in private, corporate, and museum collections nationwide and has been shown in major exhibitions at the Tucson Museum of Art, Old West Museum, Desert Caballeros Western Museum, and Pearce Museum. Her painting “Belvidere” was selected as the official Cheyenne Frontier Days 2016 poster image, the first time a cowgirl image will be featured in the rodeo’s century-long history. Her work is featured regularly in top art publications, including a cover feature in Southwest Art Magazine in 2014.

Lisa Danielle was born in the artist colony of La Jolla, California. With a pencil in hand at age two, and the largest Crayola assortment available by age five, Lisa soon moved on to colored pencil, then tempera, then oils; winning awards and eventually a partial scholarship towards her college art major. Her path never wavering, her first full-time job was in commercial illustration, but the limitations led, at the age of 23, to the launch of her career as a self-supporting fine artist, and she never looked back.

Living between Indian reservations and the great Southwest ranches; surrounded by her horses, Western research library, and extensive artifact collection, she has painted intimate ‘portraits’ of life in the historic Old West for over 30 years. Now working almost exclusively in acrylics, her inspired, deeply researched, still-life paintings, captivate with their emphasis on “life.” Her subjects, created by other hands in a different time, enchant us with their beauty. Lisa says, “My paintings' design connects the viewer to what other hands created in beauty … decades ago. So fascinating a study is this, really a study of our collective aesthetic, it is worth a lifetime of exploring in paint.”

Painting and horseback riding on the outskirts of the beautiful artist colony of Sedona, Arizona, Lisa lives the ideal Western lifestyle, providing experience to complement her knowledge of the Native American culture and Western heritage portrayed in her still-life paintings.

A Westerner her whole life, Linda Glover Gooch grew up in the warmth of the Southwest. Spending time as a child playing in the orchard groves, washes, and arroyos of Southern California, Linda developed a love of the desert and canyons. While the first professional painter in her family, both her parents and her grandmother were amateur artists. Painting since her early teens, Linda embraces the vast canyons that stretch across the West.

Multiple trips and many hours on location bring new inspiration as each day reveals different light and weather conditions. The challenges of painting Plein Air rejuvenate Linda, giving her the needed fuel to work indoors, and bringing life into larger studio pieces. The grandeur and ever-changing moods of the Southwest are a constant source of study and an important part of her continued growth as an artist.

Linda has been honored with numerous awards and recognitions. In 2019 Arizona Governor Doug Ducey selected one of her pieces for the prestigious Cowgirl Up Governor’s Choice Award at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Arizona. Many of her paintings have been featured in museums and exhibitions throughout the US. Linda is a Signature Member of Oil Painters of America and a Master Signature Member of American Women Artists. In 2021, Linda received the Museum Purchase Award and Best of Show at the Cowgirl Up! exhibit at Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Arizona.