We're honored to ring in the year with new works by three wonderful Montana-based painters:

Amy Brakeman Livezey, Lillian R. Nelson, and Kelsey Wickwire

Each of these artists creates vivid, active scenes, imagined narratives that are by turns serene, mysterious, evocative — always compelling. They engage our own imaginations, inviting us to enter and extend the stories they've begun.

The title of the show is drawn from the 1969 poem "Tell Me a Story" by Robert Penn Warren.

WARNING: Adding an artwork to your shopping cart does not, sadly, reserve it. Another visitor may have the same item in their cart and “scoop” it from you if they input their credit card first. If you really love a piece, we suggest you hurry to the check out to avoid disappointment. You can continue shopping after that purchase.

These works will be available for pick up or shipping after March 2nd.

AMY BRAKEMAN LIVEZEY

Helena, MT • BIO

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LILLIAN R. NELSON

Missoula, MT • BIO

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KELSEY WICKWIRE

St. Ignatius, MT • BIO

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ARTIST BIOS

AMY BRAKEMAN LIVEZEY

By lingering with historical figures, especially women, Amy Brakeman Livezey explores their past through a modern lens. Her use of paint, with bold colors and reductive landscapes, speaks to the present, so in the end, her work weaves the warp and weft of our collective lineage.

—Michele Corriel, Western Art & Architecture

Amy Brakeman Livezey’s abstract realism expresses her love for the human form, portraiture, and rural life. She combines figures from historic photographs—women in particular—with contemporary expressionist fields of shape and color. “The women are interesting because their lives seem to be more secret,” she says. “I’m curious about their day-to-day lives and want to learn from them—and not strictly from a historical perspective. I care about the present and the future, and what we can learn from those who came before us.”

A native of central Ohio, Brakeman Livezey worked her way to the western states and now resides in Helena, Montana. She began her creative career with a focus on independent filmmaking, which allowed her to explore a full range of interests: history, language, visual art, and music. After moving west, Livezey’s career evolved toward photo processing, then graphic design, then custom home design. In 2017 she decided to eschew the work that took her away from creating, and re-dedicate herself to her art practice.

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LILLIAN R. NELSON

Drawing inspiration from the power of visual narrative, I strive to tell a story in one single glance. Whether inspired by current social issues or a classic fairy tale, I create scenes of both beauty and unease, exploring juxtapositions of the mind and its effects on our outward behaviors. The piecing together of the wood is aesthetic, but also a physical metaphor for telling a story: thoughts and scenes, fragments of memory, colliding characters are all separate entities which together assemble the tale. By breaking format, the image is unconstrained and coming at the viewer in a three dimensional way, making the piece feel more interactive, as if it's creeping out into our regular, humdrum reality.

—Lillian R. Nelson

Lillian R. Nelson is a Montana native, with a BFA from the University of Montana. From 2013-2018 she directed E3 Convergence in Missoula—a nonprofit gallery designed to support local charities through art sales and musical events, and also to be a venue for emerging artists. In addition to being a studio artist, Nelson is a practicing muralist, having created a number of murals around the city of Missoula, most notably a piece over 100' long on the VanBuren Street underpass. Nelson is currently co-curator of art at Confluence Center in Missoula, an event space for nonprofits and community members. She lives with her husband and three young children in Missoula.

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KELSEY WICKWIRE

Working with pastel and color pencil to compose textured and saturated scenes, I’m drawn to the warm tones that evoke wide open spaces in the hazy, liminal light of the sun rising or setting. I draw on ecology, archetypal symbolism, and dreams to visually explore relationships humans have with one another and the world around them. Using distinctly Western imagery, I aim to eschew the modern “cowboy myth” of rugged individualism in favor of one steeped in interconnectedness.

Much of my art practice involves making space for grief and change, as well as playfulness and joy—honoring duality and mystery, light and dark, portals to the unknown. Juxtaposing heavy themes of grief and longing with vibrant color, I hope to capture a feeling, a character, a sense of place, woven into a spaciousness that allows viewers to imprint their own stories within the work.

—Kelsey Wickwire

Kelsey Wickwire is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist whose work is imbued with the landscapes, inhabitants, and stories of the regions she’s known up and down the American West. Having long worked as an illustration and graphic designer, she recommitted to her studio art practice in 2021, currently focusing on pastel and color pencil works on paper. She lives and works in the foothills of the Mission Mountains of Western Montana with her partner and two dogs.

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