Trailside Galleries is pleased to showcase an exhibition of recent paintings by acclaimed Montana wildlife Kyle Sims.

For this event, Sims has created approximately half a dozen new studio paintings with subjects, ranging from elk, bears and bison to bobcats and otters.  Painting with a sense of immediacy, Sims brings the viewer into the wild with his finely depicted scenery and the natural realism with which he depicts North America’s most magnificent animals.

About his newest work for this showcase he notes,  “My work for this show will be consistent with what I have been passionate about for the length of my career.  I am closest to my happiest when I am outside on a hike with my wife. This is absolutely the best way to garner ideas because when you do step out the door, you’re bound to see something worthy of depiction.” He adds,  “Of late, I’ve also enjoyed painting over works that had failed in the past.  They provide instant textures in areas on the canvas that one can utilize to help better say what it is that you want to say.  One painting in this show will actually have two failed paintings under it!  So I guess the third time really is the charm.”

Born and raised just outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming Kyle Sims’ childhood interest in art led him to Rocky Mountain College in Montana where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in art.    His artistic influences have included such notable wildlife artists as Carl Brenders, Terry Isaac, Dan Smith, Paco Young and Tucker Smith.

An avid outdoorsman, he often paints on location which has helped him to develop a precise color palette based on colors he observes in the wild.  He uses this palette in the studio in an attempt to help his paintings look more life-like rather than photographic. He notes,  “Painting on location trains you to see and interpret how life really looks to the eye, rather than the camera.  If I go outside and do a really fine field study, it’ so much more satisfying than anything else I could do.   I love the sketchy spontaneity of painting in the field and I’m out to capture that same look and feel in my studio work."

Kyle Sims is an annual exhibitor at the Prix De West Exhibition and Sale in Oklahoma City, where in 2009, he won the Major General and Mrs. Don D. Pittman Wildlife Award. He is also an exhibitor at the Masters Of the American West Sale at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles which in 2013 and 2016 awarded him the Bob Kuhn Wildlife Award.  In 2016 he was the Featured Artist for the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in Charleston, South Carolina