By: Michele Corriel
Montana’s Voices & Venues
Rooted in the landscape yet open to global perspectives, Montana’s creative culture blends tradition, experimentation, and a deep appreciation for craftsmanship. Artists working here draw inspiration from the region’s sweeping skies, weathered mountains, and vital community life, rendering these influences into work that feels distinctly committed to the art of translating place.
In this section, we highlight a cross-section of the area’s voices and the venues that support them. Susan Wechsler’s assemblages transform fragments of glass, metal, and found objects into mosaic compositions that blur the line between sculpture and painting. Kira Fercho reveals the personal stories she tells through thickly painted compositions, offering a personal interpretation of her surroundings. Complementing these individual practices, two local galleries provide important platforms for artists working in and beyond the region, curating exhibitions that connect Bozeman to the broader conversations in contemporary art. Old Main Gallery may be moving locations, but the owners remain committed to the aesthetics they formed over years on Main Street. And Visions West Contemporary concentrates on the wildness both within and beyond the West.
Together, these artists and spaces illustrate the vitality of our art scene—one that continues to evolve while remaining grounded in the unique character of the American West.
Where the West Becomes Memory
Some artists wait for inspiration, but for Kira Fercho, inspiration surrounds her 24-7.
Growing up in Montana, she has always found creative fuel in her surroundings—by stepping outside into the landscape, noticing the intensity of wildflowers at her feet, or wandering to a friend’s house and absorbing the quiet significance of community.
In many ways, she considers herself the mother of her paintings. Her artwork is widely recognized, and over time people have grown increasingly interested in the stories behind each piece—seeking to understand the inspiration and meaning embedded within the work. This connection allows her art to speak for itself, forming narratives that resonate with viewers and collectors alike.
“I spend a large part of my time in the studio or outside sketching and painting,” Kira says. “Growing up as an artist, I thought I’d have to travel for shows, but I’ve been fortunate in the last few years. I never have to step out of Montana unless I want to, and every painting I create already has a buyer. I let the rest of the chatter fall by the wayside.”
-Aspens in Golden Light | Oil on canvas | 3’ x 8’
-Yellowstone King | Oil on canvas | 40” x 50”
Spending time with collectors recharges her. “They are inspiring people,” she says.
Today, Kira is represented by five national galleries, including Dick Idol in Whitefish, where she has shown for 16 years, and the Dana Gallery in Missoula, which has represented her for 17 years.
“I also show on the Outlaw Trail, from Montana to Texas,” she says, referring to the old West area, a 1,500-mile stretch of untamed country running from Canada to New Mexico, familiar to Butch Cassidy. “I do come from a line of outlaws and attorneys. My genre is western, and I paint what I know. The other part is I like to paint large commissions, which is in the West.”
Roughly half the paintings she sells come from collaborations with interior designers, often as part of finishing a home or room without overtaking it.
“WORKING WITH DESIGNERS AND DIRECTLY WITH CUSTOMERS ALLOWS ME TO CREATE PAINTINGS THAT ARE EXACT TO SCALE, FEEL LIKE THE HOME, AND THE EXPERIENCE THEY WANT. IT’S FUN, AND IT KEEPS ME ALIVE.”
-Beauty Heals | Oil on canvas | 48” x 48”
“Working with designers and directly with customers allows me to create things that are exact to scale, feel like the home, and the experience they want,” she says. “It’s fun, and it keeps me alive.”
In Circle of Life, a 40-by-40-inch painting, Kira explores motion, memory, and medicine, inviting reflection on the cycles of nature, cultural community, and ancestral presence.
“It’s not only a painting, but also a portal into something much older than us, and much grander,” she explains. “He is an ancestor, a scout, and a spirit caught in the great wheel of time. This is not just a moment frozen in time, but part of a larger cycle: birth, death, renewal. The horse and rider, dust and light, earth and sky all merge in this visual prayer.”
Fire Horse draws inspiration from the Year of the Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac, a year associated with intensity, independence, courage, and unstoppable momentum.
-Circle of Life | Oil on canvas | 40” x 44”
-Fire Horse | Oil on canvas | 5’ x 5’
“I wanted this painting to evoke the spirit of the Fire Horse: bold, volatile, and fiercely alive,” Kira says. “The horse and rider emerge through abstraction, texture, and movement. Layered surfaces reflect a sense of history and struggle, while earthy neutrals anchor the composition.”
Flashes of red ignite the canvas, referencing fire, fate, and inner power, while turquoise and cooler tones create tension and balance. The horse form appears and dissolves simultaneously, suggesting transformation rather than permanence.
“The visible marks and rough textures are integral to the work, mirroring the Fire Horse’s reputation for defying restraint and forging its own path,” she says. “This painting embodies motion, resilience, and the charged moment when instinct overrides hesitation.”
With All My Old Cowboy Friends Are Gone, Kira paints a visual memory—a portrait of Gus McCrae from the movie Lonesome Dove.
“IT’S NOT ONLY A PAINTING, BUT ALSO A PORTAL INTO SOMETHING MUCH OLDER THAN US, AND MUCH GRANDER.“
-Beauty Heals | Oil on canvas | 48” x 48”
“Gus was never just a character to me,” she says. “He lived in the quiet evenings my dad and I spent watching Lonesome Dove. As my dad got older and sicker, sharing a couch and a story was a way of being together that didn’t require many words.”
Painted loosely, with visible, searching brushstrokes, this image resists polish in favor of feeling. Fractured color and unfinished edges echo the way memory works: imperfect, layered, and tender.
“Gus’s face emerges and dissolves at the same time, much like my father’s presence now,” she says. “No longer tangible but deeply felt. The cowboy hat, an emblem of freedom and bravado, sits slightly askew, suggesting both humor and weariness: qualities my dad admired and carried within himself.”
This painting is about the passing of time and the men who shape us even after they’re gone. Gus stands in for all the old cowboy friends—fictional and real—who taught us how to laugh, endure, and face the long trail ahead.
-Canada Geese in Winter | Oil on canvas | 3’ x 6’
“Now that my dad is gone, this painting becomes a conversation I can still return to and share with others,” she says. “A way of sitting beside him again. A way of remembering him and all of my old cowboy friends who are now gone.”
Canada Geese in the Winteris amediation on presence, endurance, and quiet grace. The geese emerge subtly from the surface, as if they are part of the season itself, hovering between visibility and disappearance.
“In this painting, the geese’s presence feels almost angelic,” Kira says. “They are like silent guardians passing through the scene. In the long winter months, when light is scarce and spirits can wane, they appear as messengers of reassurance. They are signs that movement, migration, and return are still possible, even in the harshest season.”
For Kira, the geese symbolize hope. Winter is not an ending, but a passage. Their quiet resilience suggests that grace can exist in hardship, and that life continues—unseen but steady—until warmth and light return.
“GUS WAS NEVER JUST A CHARACTER TO ME.”
-All My Cowboy Friends are Gone | Oil on canvas | 20” x 20”
“Painting is healing,” Kira says. BeautyHeals came about as the result of a car accident during a period when she turned to gardening as part of her recovery. She found herself planting flower beds, including a rose garden.
“During this time, my body and mind were learning how to trust the world again,” Kira says. “Each flower became an act of focus. Layer by layer, stroke by stroke, I learned to slow my breathing, steady my hands, and reclaim a sense of control.”
The bold colors rise with intention, not as decoration, but as affirmation that beauty can be rebuilt even in broken moments.
“The thick, physical paint holds my concentration and anchors me in the present,” she says. “It turns chaos into order and pain into purpose. This painting is a reminder that healing doesn’t arrive at all at once. It grows through attention, through color, and through the simple act of making something beautiful again.”
“SNOW FALLS LIKE MEMORY AND SILENCE CARRIES THE WEIGHT OF CENTURIES. HIS COAT, HEAVY WITH FROST, EACH CRYSTAL A TESTAMENT TO SURVIVAL AND SEASONS ENDURED. I PAINTED HIM NOT JUST AS AN ANIMAL, BUT AS A KEEPER OF THE LAND. HIS GAZE HOLDS BOTH SORROW AND STRENGTH. HE’S WINTER’S RESOLVE. HE IS THE PULSE BENEATH THE SNOW AND SKY.”
-Bison Between Snow and Sky | Oil on canvas | 60” x 60”
Feeding Time is rooted in Kira’s childhood in rural Montana.
“Cows were never just animals but quiet constants,” she says. “They ate before we did. They are a part of the rhythm of each day and the land itself.
The thick, layered paint mirrors the physicality of that life—mud on boots, weathered fences, hooves on frozen ground, and the steady weight of a herd moving together. The cows emerge from texture rather than a precise outline. Color carries memory: cool blues and greens for early mornings and open pastures, warmer earth tones for dust, hide, and soil worked by generations. The painting honors a life shaped by land, labor, and quiet continuity.
In Bison Between Snow and Sky, a solitary bison stands in the winter hush of Yellowstone National Park.
-Feeding Time | Oil on canvas | 20” x 20”
“Snow falls like memory and silence carries the weight of centuries,” she says. “His coat, heavy with frost, each crystal a testament to survival and seasons endured. I painted him not just as an animal, but as a keeper of the land. His gaze holds both sorrow and strength. He’s winter’s resolve. He is the pulse beneath the snow and sky.”
whj ART FEATURE
