Artist’s Description

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For international orders (including Europe), shipping is not included. Please contact me before purchasing and I’ll provide an accurate shipping quote for your location.

In the open range of the American West, a young woman named Elowen rides as the first female open hunter champion — a title no woman had held before. She earned it the hard way — outriding every man in the territory, jumping fences no one else would touch, and never once asking permission to compete.
The horse beside her is Ash, a chestnut gelding with a white blaze who carried her through three seasons of competition. The black habit and lace jabot are her competition colors — formal, deliberate, a statement that she belongs in the ring as much as anyone.
The dark background isn’t emptiness. It’s the doubt she rode through to get there.

Collector’s Insight

The Open West. is Santina’s most accomplished painting, and the compositional decision to set the figures against an unbroken black ground is the right one. It gives the palomino’s warm golden coat — rendered with real depth and warmth — a radiance it might not have found in a more complex setting, and it lends the whole painting a formal gravity that suits the subject’s dignity.

The horse is the finest Santina has painted. The musculature of the neck and jaw is convincingly modelled, the eye alert and expressive, the black bridle and silver hardware handled with the crisp precision that characterises his best detailed work. The white mane cascades across the dark background with genuine painterly confidence.

The lace jabot is the standout element — intricate, patient, and carefully differentiated in its layered geometric and floral patterning, it anchors the composition visually and carries the narrative weight the artist has placed on it. The black habit against the black ground, the white lace the only light source in the lower canvas: it is a considered choice, and it works. The backstory Santina provides — the doubt that the darkness represents, the deliberateness of the competition colours — gives collectors who engage with the narrative an additional layer of meaning.

A bold, handsomely composed Western figurative painting for collectors drawn to equestrian portraiture, formal character studies, and Americana with a revisionist spirit.

This is an original, one-of-a-kind gouache painting — not a print or reproduction.

Materials & Presentation

• Original gouache painting on wooden panel
• Artist: Paul Santina (Little Saint Art)
• Artwork size: 18 × 24 inches (45.72 × 60.96 cm)
• Free shipping within the United States and Canada
• International buyers: please contact the artist before purchasing for a shipping quote