Super-realistic or abstract and evocative, Kenneth Peloke’s art captures the spirit of the American West.

Look closely at one of Kenneth Peloke’s paintings of a horse or a bison, and you will see that animal’s soul. It’s not just that the pieces are hyper-realistic, often as big as life, and so meticulously detailed that people mistake them for photographs. Peloke taps into something much deeper, beyond the hide and the fur, to capture the spirit of his subjects.

In doing so, he reveals a little of his own soul. “I have a connection with the freedom thing,” he says. “Watching horses or bison grazing puts me at ease.”

He also confesses that, at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, he feels a sense of kinship with them. “They can be intimidating but gentle. They’re big and strong, but they don’t abuse their power,” he says. “I can relate to that.”

Peloke, who spent his early childhood in central New York state, has lived in Arizona since he was 15. “I enjoy the freedom and wildness of the West,” says the Scottsdale resident. “I don’t like routine or predictability.”

Making art was always a part of his life, but as a husband and father of two, the need to make a living meant his art was confined to spare time “messing around” in the garage. When the economic downturn of 2008 resulted in the loss of his construction job, Peloke decided to go all in on his true passion. “I rented a studio I couldn’t afford,” he says. “I was there all the time. I was painting everything—landscapes, nudes, portraits, abstracts, but nothing was clicking,” he says. “Then I did a life-size painting of a horse.”

A year into his experimenting, the artist had found his niche. An Idaho gallery took that first horse artwork, along with a more abstract cowboy painting, and sold both in a matter of weeks. Within a few years, his work had found its way into galleries from Wyoming to Massachusetts.

Among Peloke’s collectors is Massachusetts resident Drew Wallace, who first spotted one of his pieces at a friend’s house in Sun Valley, Idaho. Wallace, who competes in cowboy mounted shooting, bought one of Peloke’s horse paintings for his house in suburban Boston and has since commissioned three portraits of his own horses. “Ken is able to capture the mood and personality of each horse,” Wallace says. “He’s an extraordinary artist.”

No one-trick pony, Peloke is equally adept at working in the abstract. His more conceptual pieces, often of a lone cowboy on horseback, evoke the same sense of freedom and oneness with the natural world that his realistic pieces do. “It’s a unique thing for an artist of his caliber to have these two different visions that he rolls out to the world,” says Jason Williams, owner of Altamira Gallery in Scottsdale and Jackson, Wyoming. “He’s doing hyper-realism very well, and at scale, which is hard,” Williams adds. “His abstract paintings are extremely well-executed, with great color and texture.”

The artist adheres to a limited color palette of blacks, whites, grays and browns with the occasional shot of blue or yellow. But he uses that narrow range masterfully, a feat all the more impressive given that he’s colorblind. “I see yellows, blues and browns well, but colors mixed with reds or greens are tough,” he says. “I wish I could do more with color, but that’s not how life is.”

His color blindness is “an interesting side note,” Williams says, not a defining characteristic. “He’s an exciting artist. He’s one of the top Western contemporary artists today.”

SOURCES

• pelokeart.com
• altamiraart.com