Raised on a ranch with his days spent riding horses, playing in the pastures, and taking care of cattle, Phil Epp states that he is “strongly imprinted into the open spaces of the Great Plains where I was born and have spent most of my life.” As a young child, Epp knew that art was something that came to him naturally, and he has been painting for more than 40 years. The emptiness of the American West is of great interest to Epp, whose unique paintings depict windswept prairies, vast deserts, and billowing cloud formations. As he describes, these paintings “celebrate the naïve, the simple, the pure, the unspoiled and spiritual.” Working mostly in acrylics, Epp, who lives in Newton, Kansas, uses up to 16 layers of the medium to achieve the brilliance for which his images are known. With his painted scenes, which he notes are seldom of a specific location, Epp strives to “incorporate timeless universal icons into the landscape” and hopes to engage the viewer in the isolation of the land.

philepp.com