The organizers and jury of the inaugural Heart of the West Art Show and Auction in Bozeman, MT have selected the 2016 North Star Award Winner: Michael Ome Untiedt.  The North Star Award was established in 2011 and recognizes an artist who has influenced their peers with a willingness to explore new realms of creativity and expression. In mentoring and inspiring other artists through their unparalleled vision, the artist has provided guidance, as the “North Star” guides fellow travelers.  Past recipients include lauded painters Charles Fritz, Donna Howell-Sickles and Tom Gilleon.

Untiedt will travel from his home in Denver, CO to exhibit alongside 60+ premier Western artists at the Best Western Plus Grantree Inn August 11-13, 2016 and will lead an Art Chat discussion of his life’s work Saturday, August 13 from 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.   Additional events include Quick Finish artist demonstrations on Friday Aug. 12 from 5 - 7 p.m. and Saturday 2 – 3:30 p.m. and a live art auction with over 100 lots at 4 p.m.  

Untiedt has been a professional painter for decades and has achieved national recognition in the last 10 years with dramatic landscapes, nocturnes and ranching scenes.  The titles of his paintings are sentences-long and often poetical, rooted in his fascination with the history of the Old West and backed up by a lifetime of research, writing and learning.  He also mentors young artists, drawing on his vast experience in marketing and selling his work, and will be demonstrating his skill in the Saturday Quick Finish.

As Untiedt writes on his website, “I paint ideas...things that come to me during the course of my life.  Be it an Irish castle or a Kiowa teepee, I attempt to portray the humanity behind the image, not the object itself.   This can be a challenge, a noble one worth pursuing.”  

Heart of the West Bozeman is proudly sponsored by Zoot Art Gallery of Four Corners, MT and media sponsor Western Art Collector magazine.