Art and nature have been part of Dan Knepper’s life from the beginning. His mother painted a pastoral mural of horses in a meadow on his bedroom wall as well as scenes on the window shades. “We lived in a rural township,” he explains, “and our neighbors had horses and held horse shows. I would sit on the split rail fence and watch. Mom had a horse when she was a kid. Our back yard abutted a two-mile block of woods with fields in the middle, called 100 Acre Wood. I always liked the quiet solitude of the woods, swimming in the sandstone quarries, looking for animals and at the glow of light on the foliage.”
The Lamarr Valley, (Get Back in Your Car, Karen), oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. Available at Western Visions, National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Today, after 26 years of teaching, he is a full-time artist and art is still a family affair. He and his 84-year-old mother, Penny, and his youngest son, Jordan, take road trips scouting landscapes and animals—Jordan drives, Dan takes reference photos out the window and his mother provides the snacks. In an example of the apple not falling far from the tree, Jordan was executive director of the Piqua Arts Council in Piqua, Ohio, and is now with the Community Foundation of Shelby County, Ohio.
Dan recounts one of the family’s amusing road trips when they visited Virginia Falls in Glacier National Park, Montana. He and Jordan left his mother at the bottom of the trail and “trudged and plodded” up the narrow, steep path on one of the hottest days in Montana history. As they struggled along, a little girl in pigtails skipped merrily uphill past them.
The Forest King, oil, 30 x 45 in.
His painting Virginia Falls captures the transparency, translucency and reflective opacity of the water in the wilderness scene, as well as the power of nature itself. Dan says, with characteristic humor, “The falls are amazing and worth the trip no matter what shape you’re in.”
His humor often pops up in the titles of his paintings. An example is The Lamarr Valley, (Get Back in Your Car, Karen).The drama of staring eyeball to eyeball with a bison bull came about not by ignoring warning signs and approaching dangerously close to the animal but with a 200mm lens on his 35mm digital camera. Although he uses a camera, he uses his vivid memory of the colors of a scene that the camera can’t pick up. “I use an 80mm lens most of the time to get a little bit closer,” he says. “I have mixed emotions about the interaction of people and animals in the national parks. People need to be able to see and experience the animals. But I’m glad there are places in Yellowstone, for instance, where animals can be alone.”
Montana, Heart & Soul, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in.. Available at the Coeur d’Alene Art Auction.
Dan and the Rocky Mountain West became acquainted when he was showing his paintings at a gallery in Whitefish, Montana, and the gallery suggested he might sell better if he had local subject matter. “We visited Glacier National Park, one of the last wild places and the animals that inhabit it. I discovered that the landscape of the West is jaw dropping,” he recalls. “That awe is overwhelming.”
He takes photographs and edits the images in his camera and on his computer. He paints in oil mostly on a white canvas. “I want the light to reflect off the canvas through the paint.” The effect is more apparent when he paints in watercolor. In his oil paintings, he draws in the main outlines of the shapes in his composition with yellow ochre paint using cobalt drier to help it dry faster
His fascination with light comes from his observing its effects in the woods behind his home and from his studying glassblowing at Bowling Green State University where he received his degree in art education. The effects of glass on light are wonderfully varied, whether the glass is colored or clear. His teacher in college had studied with Harvey Littleton, the father of the American studio glass movement.
Stand Where I Stood, oil on canvas, 45 x 30 in. Private collection.
“It’s very expensive to set up and operate a hot glass studio,” he explains. So, he began his teaching career, continued painting and, in 2013, turned to painting full time.
Although his painting technique is impressive, he says that he doesn’t want people to stand in front of his paintings admiring his technical skill. “I want you to feel sucked into the scene,” he says. “I want you to feel that you’re there, to hear the water and smell the cedar and the sage, to feel the dust in a painting like The Cutting Horse. I have a former student who is a full-time cowgirl and she sends me images from her daily work.
The Cutting Horse, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in.
“Every artist considers how much detail to put into a painting. I enjoy painting detail and I don’t stop where I probably should. In the relatively flat city of Kalispell, Montana, the gateway to Glacier National Park, all of sudden there is the wall of mountains. I run the risk of them not being believable but that’s the way it really is.”
Virginia Falls, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 in. Courtesy of Going to the Sun Gallery.
He sold a painting to the Coors Family Collection at The Russell live auction and was invited to the Coors’ ranch in Colorado to take reference photos for subsequent commissions. “I also photographed the bear and elk in Rocky Mountain National Park. It would be fun to be a plein air painter,” he says, “but I’m the slowest painter in the world.”
Heading and Heeling, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in. Available at Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show & Sale.
Despite being a slow painter, he is a busy one. His painting Montana, Heart & Soul is going to Coeur d’Alene Art Auction in Reno, Nevada, on July 26; Heading and Heeling will be at Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show & Sale, July 18 to 27 in Cheyenne, Wyoming; I Hope She Remembers Where She Parked will be in the Hold Your Horses! Exhibition and Sale, July 26 through September 28 at the Phippen Museum in Prescott, Arizona; and The Lamarr Valley is headed to the Western Visions show at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, from September 6 to 28.
Dan Knepper in his studio.
“I’m grateful to be in shows and winning awards,” the artist says, “and having my paintings hang next to those of my artistic heroes.” —
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