Bradley Settles (Texas, b. 1983), "Bettye", oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left, 2025

sight: 36 x 48 in., frame: 45.5 x 57.5 in.

Provenance: Property from the collection of the artist, Waco, Texas

Bradley Settles was born in San Antonio, Texas and raised on a 300-acre cattle ranch where his family raised prize-winning longhorns. He attended Churchill High School before accepting an athletic scholarship to pole vault at Baylor University. A major influence on his interest in art growing up was his mother. Like the greatest teachers of this world, [she] gave little in the way of instruction, but gave endlessly in the way of opportunity and support. His paintings focus on poetic, majestic, and mysterious moments that exist in land's quietest mornings and most thunderous afternoon storms. I search for the feeling of connection to the land and its history that seems to fade without the concentration required in painting. These are not pictures or paintings, but moments of history; the compelling whispers of the land calling us back. When Settles is not in the studio he is busy educating the next generation of artists.