Rocky Mountain Cowboy 2014

Mark Maggiori, born in 1977, painted this ‘Rocky Mountain Cowboy’ with oils, and right away you get a sense of a very skilled painter enjoying the pure craft of image-making. It's like a love letter to the Old West, but with a contemporary eye. Look closely, and you can see where Maggiori's laid down thick strokes, especially on the horse. There’s a real push-pull between the detailed representation and the materiality of paint – it reminds me a little of Frederic Remington, but maybe with more brushstrokes? That area around the cowboy’s chaps, for example, those brown-beige tones create a real sense of light, but they also feel like raw, unblended pigment. It’s not just about depicting a scene; it's about the process of painting itself, and that’s what makes it exciting. The scene feels authentic and grand, but what stays with you is the physical presence of the paint. It's about building a world with colors and gestures.