A typical day on the ranch for Alice Leese is never typical. Her sandy ranch in the Permian Basin in West Texas, one of five ranches started by her great grandfather in the late 1800s, is a dynamic entity, and Leese must always be on her toes.
“There’s always something that needs to be fixed. A typical day could be we get up and go check the water. Ranchers maintain water troughs, solar pumps, water wells, pipelines. Because there’s no live water here, we have to pump all of it from the ground. Something’s always needing to be fixed,” she says.
Alice LeeseAt the turn of the 19th century, Leese’s great grandfather ventured from Maine to the Texas railhead in Odessa, driving a herd of Coloradoan sheep. He established the YT Ranch, which has grown into a series of generational, family-owned ranches in the Permian Basin. Leese is a fourth-generation rancher working alongside the fifth and sixth. Conservation is a cornerstone for YT Ranch, implementing things like rotational grazing, mesquite brush control and the careful use of resources. And their cattle never have to walk more than a mile to get water.
“Next is feeding the horses and cattle, or we might find a windmill that’s down,” Leese continues. “Could be that I’m going to check on whatever’s going on in the pasture. Or if things are pretty quiet, then I’ll get to the studio and start painting.”
Alice Leese on the YT Ranch.A signature member of the American Plains Artists and a member of Plein Air Artists Colorado, Plein Air Painters of New Mexico and the Outdoor Painters Society, Leese captures the stories, energy and emotion of her home in the sandy sprawl of the northern Chihuahuan Desert. Dramatic, swirling clouds, undulating sand dunes and panoramic desertscapes punctuate her oil paintings, as well as horses, cattle and, of course, ranchers.
“I’ve never tried to develop a style, I’ve just worked. I think that my style came from studying art history and being influenced by artists like Thomas Hart Benton [and] the rhythmic landscapes he painted and drew. People who have that movement in their paintings, [like] Van Gogh,” says Leese. La Centinela Starry Night draws inspiration from the famous Van Gogh painting, with Leese’s own Western flair. Rather than the twilight view of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Leese’s painting features ocotillo and prickly pears.
Branding, oil on panel, 14 x 11 in.
She also studies the sculpture of 19th- and 20th-century Italian artist Umberto Boccioni. The rhythmic, flowing forms of his sculpture find their way into Leese’s clouds, mountains and desert shrubbery. Take a look at works like Morning Drive Through The Sandhills, Sand Mines, Storm Coming and Witcher.
Witcher, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in.
“All art history before, we can use it to influence our works now. The movement, the emotion that the movement carries…Whatever you’re saying, that’s what’s most important,” says the artist. She adds that she also finds inspiration in the forced perspective of Wayne Thiebaud or the way Jasper Johns manipulates space with flat forms.
“[I want to] show people what it’s like to be in a certain place. The ranch has always been my muse…I want to be able to convey the beauty in places that people overlook, and also the ranching lifestyle.”
La Centinela Starry Night, oil in linen, 48 x 60 in.
Morning Drive Through The Sandhills, oil on linen, 36 x 48 in.
From a young age, Leese’s parents encouraged her to express her creative side. With a modest but substantial set of art supplies, Leese and her mother would go out and draw windmills on the ranch. Her mother realized that Leese’s drawings, even as a child, were better than her own. From there, her parents continued to nurture her love of art, taking Leese and her siblings to art lessons and supplying them with everything they needed to thrive creatively. “They just really fostered that love of the visual arts. They’d take us to museums, which I think is one of the best places you can take a kid.”
Sand Mines, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in.She continues, “One of the things I remember that I think really inspired me to be an artist was Tom Lea, the Western WPA artist. He had a mural at the downtown Odessa Post Office called Stampede.” The massive 16-foot mural features a herd of rushing bulls spooked by a lightning storm. “I remember I would always want to go to the post office with my grandmother, and we’d stop and take time to look at that mural.”
Eventually Leese went to college, initially thinking she wanted to be a vet, but “art won out,” and she earned a BFA in studio art. She’s currently working on her master’s degree in art at Sul Ross State University.
Branding at the Wallace, oil on panel, 14 x 11 in.
Leese is represented by Jeff Tabor Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Western Gallery in Dallas, Texas, and has been an artist-in-residence with the National Parks Arts Foundation at Fort Union National Monument in New Mexico, Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii and Dry Tortugas National Park in Florida.
Branding on the V Ranch, oil on panel, 11 x 14”
“Art, to me, is a form of communication,” says Leese. “I’m not a wordsmith, but I love to paint. Artists see the world from a different viewpoint. Painting can communicate big emotions and big ideas that can’t be described with words.” —
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