Award-winning Colorado western artists present new work in two-man show at Santa Fe gallery
Sorrel Sky Gallery opens the show, Western Stories Now and Then: New Work by Duke Beardsley & Greg Kelsey at First Friday Art Walk on September 4. The artists will be present from 5:00-7:30 p.m. to meet the public. 
Western Stories Now and Then features contemporary western Pop-art influenced oil paintings by Duke Beardsley and bronze sculptures of western scenes by Greg Kelsey. Each artist’s work is inspired by an appreciation of western life and is informed by his first-hand knowledge of the working cowboy’s experience.
Duke Beardsley is a sixth generation Coloradan raised in Denver and on a cattle ranch in eastern Colorado whose "duel" upbringing is integral to his art. As a result he blends traditional western iconography with a contemporary sensibility. Beardsley’s new work presents his signature iconic western images in a cutting-edge format. He offered, “My work continues to explore and challenge the romanticized icon of the working cowboy by extracting it from the conventional and herd-bound, traditional western landscape and instead placing it against an equally romanticized and often highly stylized background. Where it goes from there is up to it."
Greg Kelsey, an active cowboy on his working ranch in southwest Colorado, considers himself a storyteller who captures the movement, action and mindset of his western subjects in his realistic bronze sculptures.
On display will be his new award-winning sculpture, Sundance & the Wild Bunch Hit the Union Pacific. The sculpture depicts the robbery of a train portrayed in the Hollywood film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Kelsey offered, “This historical tale resonated with me, it is a dynamic story that was perfect material for a sculpture. I live in one of the old stomping grounds of the Wild Bunch. My neighborhood of the Four Corners was a known hideout.”
Both academically trained, their work is collected world-wide and held in the permanent collections of the most prestigious western art institutions in America including the Denver Art Museum, The Booth Western Art Museum, the Whitney Collection of Western American Art and the Eiteljorg Museum.
Sorrel Sky Gallery owner Shanan Campbell Wells offered, “Duke and Greg are two great western artists with different approaches and styles yet both are grounded in a love of the West –today’s West and yesterday’s.”
Sorrel Sky Gallery’s fresh approach to Western art presents a select collection of contemporary and traditional fine art and jewelry for the discerning collector. Sorrel Sky Gallery was founded in Durango, CO in 2002 and opened its Santa Fe, NM location in 2014. It represents over 60 painters, sculptors and jewelers including bronze artist Star Liana York, painter Billy Schenck, and Ben Nighthorse, among others.