Show Preview | Mark Maggiori

ON SEPTEMBER 18 Mark Maggiori’s first solo show in three years, Rise of the Western Lights, opens during the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival in Wyoming. Presented by Jackson Hole Art Auction in partnership with Far West, the exhibition will unveil 20 to 25 works for auction, ballot sale and showcase.

Maggiori says the show reflects a true evolution in his creative process, both technically and emotionally. “Over the last three years I’ve pushed myself to go deeper into atmosphere, light, abstraction inside realism, and scale,” says the artist. “I wanted the paintings to feel less descriptive and more immersive.”

Born in Fontainebleau, France, Maggiori grew up deeply influenced by American cinema and skateboard culture. It wasn’t, however, until a hiatus from his singing career with the French nu metal band Pleymo that he visited the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City and realized the American West— and painting it—was his new calling.

Approaching a new depth of personal meaning, Maggiori says that these paintings feel quieter and more resonant than previous works. “I think the paintings became quieter in some ways, but also more powerful emotionally. I stopped trying to explain everything,” he notes. “I became more interested in suggestion, mystery and allowing space for the viewer to project themselves into the work.”

For Maggiori, the American West still feels mythical, and that sensibility runs throughout his work. “I’m drawn to the tension between the historical West and the contemporary one,” Maggiori admits. “You can still stand in certain places and feel almost outside of time.”

What interests him most is carrying that lineage forward without falling into nostalgia. “I’m not trying to re-create the past exactly. I’m trying to paint what the West feels like now, emotionally, spiritually, visually, through a contemporary lens,” he says. “For me the West is ultimately less about geography than about human emotion confronting immensity. That’s something timeless.”

Kevin Doyle, managing director and partner of Jackson Hole Art Auction, believes Maggiori’s Western landscapes continue a visual legacy established by early artists who first documented the region in paint, while simultaneously pushing that tradition forward. “In many ways, Jackson Hole itself serves as an emblem of the Old West,” says Doyle, “making it an especially meaningful setting for this intersection of past and present perspectives.”

Doyle says he is especially excited to showcase Maggiori’s large-scale works in a live, atmospheric setting, explaining, “Many of these works are grand in scale, so their sense of presence and atmospheric detail really comes alive when you’re standing in front of them rather than seeing them on Instagram.”

That monumental scale is intentional, Maggiori explains, as the texture, light and physical size of the paintings create an almost cinematic experience while drawing viewers into intimate moments of color, gesture and expression. “Even if someone has never been in the American West, I want them to recognize something emotionally human in these scenes: loneliness, resilience, wonder, contemplation, freedom,” he says. “Most of all, I hope the paintings leave room for silence and imagination…The strongest moments in art happen when people bring part of themselves into the work.” —Doreen Manning

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This story appeared in the August/September 2026 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Subscribe today to read every issue in its entirety.

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