ARTISTS
Abend Gallery
Brian Keith Stephens: My Mother Let Me Be a Cowboy
In My Mother Let Me Be a Cowboy, Brian Keith Stephens brings a deeply personal body of work to Abend Gallery, exploring the cowboy as symbol, not costume, a stand-in for freedom, uncertainty, and the courage to choose an unpromised path. These paintings move between instinct and intention, balancing quiet resolve with the thrill of the unknown.
Stephens approaches painting as a lived experience, where marks can be soft or forceful, careful or unruly, and meaning arrives through repetition, risk, and trust. The resulting works feel both grounded and open-ended, like fragments of a larger story still unfolding. This solo exhibition invites viewers into that space, where independence meets vulnerability, and where the pursuit of what “feels real” becomes its own kind of mythology.
Artist on show: