Powell artist Paul Kethley will exhibit “Legends of the Frontier” — a collection of 20 original oil paintings — at the Cody library from Sept. 1-30.

Kethley will host a reception at the library’s Grizzly Hall on Thursday, Sept. 17, from 4-6 pm. A presentation of his major works will be followed by a discussion of his creative process and of placing a narrative in a painting. Light refreshments will be included.

The paintings going on display at the Cody library range from fighting mustangs to a Native American tepee encampment piece that recently earned the Wells Fargo award at the Cody Country Art League’s Community Art Show.

After leaving the commercial printing industry in 1989, Kethley said he focused on developing paintings that told stories.

“With the Western art market being so competitive I found it necessary to add a bit of a narrative to most of my paintings because it adds an extra appeal that is uncommon to most of the fine art I encounter,” he said. “However, it takes more research, thought and sketch time to create such pieces.”

As an example, he said Western shows often including paintings of bison standing in a prairie, “whereas my painting might show them running and the reason why which could be a dust devil (wind blown dust funnel).”

“This adds the element of action, motion and what’s causing it,” Kethley said. “I believe this makes the piece more unique and collectable.”

His creative process involves inspiration and imagination, then a simple charcoal, thumbnail sketch to record what’s in the mind’s eye. If that step proves promising, a small color mock up in oil follows, he said, with more detail and developed color pallet.

After many small adjustments to the mock up, the final larger piece is scaled up and completed to include even more detail and refinement to all the major elements of the painting. He includes planned pauses to objectively evaluate the progress of the work.

Since the early 1980s, Kethley has organized and conducted several private drawing and outdoor painting workshops in Colorado and Utah. He said he enjoys interacting with students, sharing experiences and live demonstrations on site to help students overcome typical problems related to landscape painting and the anatomy of animal and human figures.

Kethley’s work has been included in national Western art shows, including the Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show and the “Night of Artists” Western Art Show at the Briscoe Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Kethley’s work has been sold to national and international collectors, with his piece “Through the Slots” purchased as part of a permanent collection at the Pearce Museum of Western Art in Corsicana, Texas, in 2007.

His work can currently be seen at the Bozeman Trail Gallery in Sheridan, the Cody Country Art League in Cody and online at www.paulkethley.com.