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Mountain Trails Gallery
“A Piece of Paradise” and other paintings by Troy Collins can be seen at Mountain Trails Gallery, which represents him in Jackson.
COLLINS
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est Journey,” which appears on the 2022 Fall Arts Festival poster. The Teton Range is visible through the trees, almost aflame with fall color.
Collins also has painted the American flag and pushed himself to master figurative painting. Locally, the artist is represented by Mountain Trails Gallery at 155 Center St., just north of Jackson Town Square. Gallery visitors can view his work from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day.
When he was a beginner Collins painted from a reference image. He moved on to spending about half his time painting “en plein air” — artistspeak for painting outdoors. Now Collins is primarily a studio painter who references his imagination and memory to make his work, though he still sets up an easel outside a few times a year.
Sometimes Collins uses his hands to apply globs of paint to canvas, manipulating the colors with a palette knife. It’s a dramatic process that has made him a perennial favorite at the Jackson Hole QuickDraw, which Collins has participated in for more than a decade.
His impressionist style and “wet on wet” paint application lend themselves to the constraints of the chaotic event, which Collins always starts with a completely blank canvas.
“Most of the time it’s just a complete mess until like the last 10 or 15 minutes,” he said. “It’s like I literally can feel people’s anxiety behind me as they’re watching this process, because it just looks like nothing for so long.”
As the featured artist this year, Collins will conduct a public demonstration on a larger canvas at Mountain Trails Gallery immediately following the QuickDraw event. When Collins paints with an audience, he said, “I have a lot of people that come in either starting to paint or wanting to get going in it. “The opportunity to, you know, inspire and show them some techniques is really satisfying for me.” Two artists Collins has inspired are his daughters, Mika and Cici Collins, who are both in their 20s. “They’re such complete opposite kids, and their art is the same way,” he said. Though they have been painting with him their whole lives, Collins never expected his children to take a similar career path. “They’re both creative and artistic, but I didn’t really think that they
“Like when would pick it up professionally until the people start last couple of years,” he said. “They really to doubt got into it and started working hard that you and started paintcan do it, ing a lot.” Collins has that’s what worked on technique with both of pushed me his daughters, and although he said to keep going.” you can see his influence in their work Troy Collins to some extent, each has developed her 2022 FALL ARTS FESTIVAL own style.FEATURED ARTIST Collins’ daughters also have had their father’s work ethic as a model. “The key, to me, is perseverance,” he said. That’s what got Collins through the hard years, when it was not at all clear that he would ever be a financially successful artist. Once the Collinses even had their heat shut off. “A lot of people at that stage usually go a different route, choose a different career because it just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen,” he said. “I was just way too stubborn to do that. “Like when people start to doubt that you can do it , that’s what pushed me to keep going.” Contact Emily Christensen via fallarts@jhnewsandguide.com.
In addition to playing host to the 2022 Fall Arts Festival featured artist, Troy Collins, Mountain Trails Gallery represents some 80 other premier artists. This is “Big Sky Country,” by Jim Wodark.
MOUNTAIN TRAILS blazes a trail for Western art
Mountain Trails Gallery
155 Center St. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Sunday 307-734-8150 MountainTrailsGalleries.com
By Tibby Plasse
Just a stone’s throw from Town Square’s elk antler arches, Mountain Trails Gallery celebrates 30 years as an epicenter of Western culture in Jackson Hole by embracing the 2022 Fall Arts Festival wholeheartedly, representing Troy Collins, this year’s Fall Arts featured artist and posting four artists for the favorite QuickDraw.
Specializing in original paintings and bronze sculptures by some of today’s most important artists, Mountain Trails boasts 65,000 square feet of gallery space for Western and contemporary art in a relaxed setting amid bustling downtown Jackson.
Mountain Trails features an eclectic mix of representational and impressionist paintings and sculptures, as well as a broad selection of Western artifact reproductions. Its genres include Western, figurative, wildlife, still life and landscape. And it provides comprehensive assistance with commissions and installation.
Four Mountain Trails artists will participate in this year’s QuickDraw: Bryce Pettit, Lyn St. Claire, Colt Idol and Chris Navarro.
“Lyn’s paintings have won over 80 awards across the country,” Mountain Trails Director Caralyn Ross said, “including Best in Show three years in a row at the Ward Museum Show. Her work has been exhibited at the Tucson Museum of Art, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Bennington Center for the Arts, the West Valley Art Museum, the Hiram Blauveldt Art Museum and the Phippen Museum.”
Sculptor Navorro is best known for his monumental works, such as the 15-foot-high bull rider on display at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, titled Champion Lane Frost.
“Sculpture doesn’t live in a world of flat paint,” Ross said. “It glows in the realism of breadth of dimension, shape, form, detail and artist interpretation. Navarro’s work seems to breathe.”
Petit is also a sculptor. Trained as both an artist and a biologist, he uses strong lines and sound design principles to express his feelings about the natural world. He studied biology, ecology and art as an undergraduate and at the graduate level.
“His expertise in the understanding of biology and aquatic ecosystems reflects in all his sculptures,” Ross said. “He spends many hours observing and experiencing nature in an effort to better understand his subject and to improve his art. For Bryce his art is the culmination of his knowledge, feeling and love of nature.”
Both art fans and nature lovers will marvel at Mountain Trails Gallery carefully curated roster of artists and their attention to detail and movement and uncanny ability to capture the essence of the wild West.
Contact Tibby Plasse via 732-7078 or fallarts@jhnewsandguide.com.
LOT 26: WAYNE JUSTUS (1952– ) Elk Stalkers, $6,000 – $9,000
LOT 75: RICHARD MRAVIK (1973– ) King of the Mountain, $5,000 – $7,000
LOT 32: RALPH CROSBY SMITH (1907–1962) Surprise!, $3,000 – $5,000 LOT 17: TOM SAUBERT (1950– ) Mending, $4,000 – $6,000
LOT 57: MICHAEL DUDASH (1952– ) After an Autumn Snow, $7,000 – $10,000
LOT 97: RICHARD MURRAY (1948– ) Bull Moose, $6,000 – $9,000 LOT 11: WILLIAM PHILLIPS (1945– ) Sunday Drivers, $6,000 – $9,000 LOT 36: CHARLES DEFEO (1892–1978) Fisherman’s Luck, $6,000 – $9,000
LOT 92: SCOTT CHRISTENSEN (1962– ) Early Spring, $2,000 – $4,000 LOT 85: JARED SANDERS (1970–) Ochre Farm, $3,000 – $5,000
LOT 101: THOMAS DEDECKER (1951–) Western Sunset, 2022, $4,000 – $6,000
Fo r a d d i t i o n a l i n f o r m a t i o n a n d t o p u r c h a s e a c a t a l o g p l e a s e c o n t a c t : A u c t i o n C o o r d i n a t o r, A m y J a m e s c o o r d i n a t o r @ j a c k s o n h o l e a r t a u c t i o n . c o m 8 6 6 - 5 4 9 - 9 2 7 8 w w w. j a c k s o n h o l e a r t a u c t i o n . c o m
LOT 185: WILLIAM GOLLINGS (1878–1932) Summer Camp, $200,000 – $300,000 LOT 142: BOB KUHN (1920–2007) A Walk on the Tundra - Grizzly Bears, $100,000 – $150,000
LOT 153: HOWARD TERPNING (1927– ) Awaiting the Signal, $500,000 – $700,000
LOT 159: JAMES BAMA (1926–2022) Descendant Of Black Elk, $30,000 – $50,000 LOT 210: THOMAS MOLESWORTH (1890–1977) Loveseat, ca. 1940, $25,000 – $35,000 LOT 156: FRANK MCCARTHY (1924–2002) The Greeting, $7,000 – $10,000
LOT 139: CONRAD SCHWIERING (1916–1986) Autumn in the Mountains, $12,000 – $18,000 LOT 138: TUCKER SMITH (1940– ) Rabbit Brush, Lupine and Sage, $60,000 – $80,000 LOT 199: G. HARVEY (1933–2017) The Sidewalk Café, $100,000 – $150,000
LOT 237: DAVID SHEPHERD (1931–2017) Elephant and Gnarled Tree, $25,000 – $35,000
LOT 131: CARL BRENDERS (1937– ) Tundra Challenge, $25,000 – $35,000
Fo r a d d i t i o n a l i n f o r m a t i o n a n d t o p u r c h a s e a c a t a l o g p l e a s e c o n t a c t : A u c t i o n C o o r d i n a t o r, A m y J a m e s c o o r d i n a t o r @ j a c k s o n h o l e a r t a u c t i o n . c o m 8 6 6 - 5 4 9 - 9 2 7 8 w w w. j a c k s o n h o l e a r t a u c t i o n . c o m
