About Kathy Winkler

Kathy Winkler began her career as an artist as a child, drawing animals at home and school. As an adult, while raising two daughters, she won various art show competitions. As her children grew to be teenagers, she began to work as an engineering graphics artist supporting U.S. Navy contracts and doing patent drawings. She became manager of engineering projects concerned with naval combat warfare systems. Concurrently, she obtained her M.A. in International Studies, completing her work at Oxford University.

After 20 years in government contracting, Kathy decided to go back to two of her true loves: creating paintings of animals, and riding and training her horses. Over the past 15 years, her painting style has changed, but her subjects--longhorns, buffalo and farm animals--remain the same. Her work has been the subject of shows at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces, NM; the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown, ND; and the Butler Longhorn Museum in League City, TX. Kathy has paintings in the permanent collections of each of these museums. Additionally, her paintings have been featured on the cover of the New Mexico Stockman's Journal seven times.

“When I visit ranches and parks, I study the animals, watching how they move and how they observe me," Kathy says. "I study them sometimes for hours or days. When I see them being themselves, I take photos for future painting prospects. When I paint them, I attempt to capture the spirit that they are, not just what they are.”