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Wyoming native Joel Ostlind is a self-taught artist who spent much of his life herding cattle on horses throughout the American West. He holds degrees in Soil Science and Ranch Management, but this tall cowboy always carried a sketchbook to record his intimacy with the land in exquisite detail and authenticity.
In 1990, he bid farewell to his cowboy days and moved with his wife and family to a home outside Big Horn, Wyoming. He signed up for a printmaking class at Sheridan College and built a home studio in the Big Horn Mountains. His drawings found new life as copper plate etchings depicting the full range of Western life, from Native American lodges to contemporary fly fishermen, telemark skiers and horses grazing under Wyoming skies. Although Ostlind is also a painter, he considers himself first and foremost an etcher. His style has been compared to Rembrandt’s, emphasizing expressive draftsmanship. The pencil drawings of those sketchbook days are the foundation of all of Ostlind’s artworks, just as Rembrandt used sketches to plan his canvases.
The work of Joel Ostlind has been featured in the 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 and 2013 Coors Western Art Exhibit and Sale in Denver, CO, and in 2002 he was the Featured Artist in the show. His prints were exhibited in a 2004 retrospective, Copper & Canvas: The Prints and Paintings of Joel Ostlind, at Bradford Brinton Museum in Big Horn, WY. Ostlind was the subject of a 2005 article in Southwest Art magazine, and will be featured as one of “Three to Watch” in the March, 2017 edition of Western Art Collector. His work has been shown in galleries, museums and exhibitions across the US.
“The Ann Korologos Gallery gives nuance to the idea of ‘Western art’, tapping into the American West and frontier culture as an inspiration for their collections. Focused on American artists working across various media from painting and photography to sculpture and print-making, Ann Korologos Gallery is an unmissable, distinctively Coloradan bulwark of the Rocky Mountains’ arts scene. Located outside of Aspen in the small town of Basalt, numerous artists featured at the gallery channel the town’s idyllic surroundings into their artistic vision, with particular reference to the town’s reputation as a mountain fishing Mecca.”
