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www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, November 4, 2011 · 26 Artscene Award-winning artist working to protect wild horses By Dominik Kurek OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Oakville photo-realist Bruce Lawes has embarked on a largescale painting project, which he hopes will help protect the wild mustang populations of western United States. After seeing a television special on the fate of many wild horses, the nature painter, who has won numerous prestigious awards, could not sit idly by. "We watched that episode and by the time it was finished I said to my wife that I want to do whatever I can to bring further awareness to her (Ginger Kathrens) cause and I want to create a painting that will depict the beauty and the reason why we should not let these animals die or be persecuted," Lawes said from his basement studio, where he is currently working on that project. The show he was watching was Nature on PBS, which featured The Cloud Foundation, formed by Kathrens, dedicated to protecting wild horses. Having been featured in the Canadian art and architecture magazine Arabella with his race horse paintings numerous times, the Oakville artist contacted the magazine, hoping to do something for the non-profit organization in the United States. The magazine called the foundation and the project began, which he estimates will take six weeks to paint. ERIC RIEHL / OAKVILLE BEAVER SAVING HORSES: Oakville award-winning nature artist Bruce Lawes is hoping the eight-foot wide painting he's currently working on will raise money for an organization that protects wild mustangs in the U.S. To do his part, Lawes is creating an eight-foot sized painting that will be auctioned off, with proceeds going to the foundation. Arabella will feature the story in an upcoming issue. "I generally paint large; mainly I like it for the impact it creates," he said. "A lot of paintings are designated for the corporate office, in a boardroom or something like that, where you want it to be large." The oil painting will feature a lone horse on a wide Montana landscape with large clouds above. The painter partners with a photographer to capture the image he will paint, and for this project, he's used Photoshop computer software to design the image he is painting. "This is Cloud," Lawes said of the lone horse. "That's the actual horse that Ginger Kathrens has filmed. She's a cinematographer who has filmed him from birth till now, 12 years later." In those years, Cloud has become the head stallion in his small band of horses that live on the Pryor Mountains in Montana. "Montana is known as big sky country, so I wanted to create a big sky to symbolize Montana but also parallel it with the main subject, Cloud. This is called In the Land of Clouds," Lawes said of the painting. He said every painting is a depiction of a story. "I like to make people think about a painting rather than just to see a pretty picture," he said. Lawes is an internationally acclaimed painter, whose work carries a certain cachet that will fetch a strong price at auction. He's won top awards with Ducks Unlimited Canada three years in a row and he's just won three firstSee Mustangs page 27