Kelly Dangerfield

Kelly Dangerfield was born in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1980 and grew up in the surrounding area.  His family spent the weekends fishing, hunting, and camping throughout Utah and those trips helped instill a love for the outdoors that would eventually inspire his career choice.  Growing up, he had many artistic influences including his uncle and grandmother who are also artists and a very encouraging high school art teacher.  He was constantly drawing from an early age and further honed his skills when he received instruction in the fundamentals of realism and life drawing during high school.  By his senior year he had won several awards and stood out as an exceptional talent among his peers.

 

After high school Kelly stepped away from his art to earn a business degree from Utah State University, majoring in Economics and Finance, and proceeded to pursue a career in the investment industry.  After several years working for a prominent financial planning firm in Salt Lake City, Kelly grew restless and again picked up his paint brushes.  His passion for art and nature called him back and in 2007 he made the decision to pursue his art full-time. 

 

Kelly is currently focused on portraying the wildlife of North America within their natural habitat.  All of his work is derived from real experiences and scenes he has witnessed first-hand.  He hopes his work can help bring attention to the beauty that surrounds us in nature and the importance of conserving our native wildlife and ecosystems.  As an artist, Kelly is mostly self-taught, though he draws inspiration from numerous artists that have come before him and strives to study their work whenever possible.  He regularly receives guidance and critiques of his work from some of the top artists in the region, which has helped him to grow as an artist immensely.  Working in oils, he strives for a lifelike feel in his paintings, concentrating on accurate drawing and the natural effects of light on the form and in the landscape.  As his painting style has evolved, he is pushing himself to create a more painterly representation of his subject, using a variety of textures and colors to create interest in the paint application itself.  He enjoys painting and drawing from life as often as possible, but also relies on his own wildlife and landscape photographs as reference for his studio works. 

 

After spending nearly 10 years in Bozeman, Montana, Kelly and his family relocated to Pocatello, Idaho in 2015.  When he’s not in his studio, he spends as much time as possible seeking out inspiration, which he usually finds when exploring the backcountry, wading in a trout stream, or studying and photographing the wildlife he chooses to paint.