"The American West has always been as much an idea as a reality," notes George Speer, Director of the NAU Art Museum, "and Tracy Stuckey's paintings investigate the region as a 'brand' shaped by romantic images, as an imaginative territory embodied in iconic figures such as John Wayne and the Marlboro Man." 

Stuckey explains that he is "interested in the 'Ralph Laurenization' of the iconic West and its characters." His canvases offer pointed satires of the exploitation of the region that began with the gold rush and survives in today's "one-percenters," bringing their chaps, cowboy hats and Pendletons to California as signs of authenticity. Apart from their humor, however, Stuckey's works investigate with considerable seriousness the impact of our continued exploitation of the West, which seems eternal and enduring, but is, in fact, vanishing under environmental and population pressures.

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