BY KAREN BOSSICK

Thom Ross, whose paintings portray historical events and iconic Americans such as General Custer in new ways, will hold an Artist Chat today ahead of Friday’s Gallery Walk.

Ross will present a behind-the-scenes look at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a new exhibition of paintings being shown at Hemmings Gallery, 340 Walnut St. in Ketchum. The talk, which will feature Ross and special guests Annie Oakley and Bill Cody played by Barb and Ralph Melfi, will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. today—Thursday, July 2.

Ross’s paintings revisit the touring spectacle created in 1883 that transported viewers living in New York City and elsewhere to an imagined American frontier. The spectacle continues to influence how the West is seen today.

"The West we think we know was staged, performed, and retold long before we ever saw it,” said Ross, known for his 2005 life-sized installation of Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Bighorn. “I’m interested in that space—where fact and fiction blur, where reality becomes myth. And how Cody seemed to move with ease from one to the other.” 

Said Gallery Owner Edward Hemmings: “After more than fifty years of painting, Thom Ross has developed a visual language that is instantly recognizable and immediately engaging, but it’s the depth of storytelling, the ideas he unearths beneath the surface that stay with you.”

The Grand Opening Party for the exhibition will be held from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 3, during the Sun Valley Gallery Association’s July exhibition. Ross will be in attendance.

Here are some of the other highlights of Friday’s Gallery Walk at various galleries around Ketchum:

CONNELLY MARTIN GALLERY, 100 Fifth St. East just down the street from Gail Severn Gallery, opened Wednesday evening. The gallery, which has its roots in Austin, Texas, plans to bring works of contemporary artists from around the world, including London and Budapest.

Its inaugural group exhibition is titled “A Condition of Staying,” and it introduces the gallery’s current roster of 15 national and international artists. The collection of work considers the allure of places or experiences so entrancing that they compel us to linger far beyond intention.

Featured artists are Georgia Beaumont, József Csató, Renata Daina, Christopher Dunlap, Melanie Essex, Andrea Joyce Heimer, Elizabeth Hohimer, Xingxin Hu, Katie Leimbach, Lorena Lohr, Ellie MacGarry, Bernard Mattox, Anja Niemi, Yuko Nishikawa and Danielle Winger.

KNEELAND GALLERY, 4th and Leadville streets—The gallery is showcasing works by Idaho artist Silas Thompson. He learned to treasure the beautiful rivers, valleys and mountains that dot the high desert of the American West on annual backpacking trips with his father. And today, he creates work that evoke memories similar to those he remembers so well—especially those 50 miles past the last stoplight.

ANDERSON ARCHITECTURE, 320 1st Avenue North, is hosting a solo show featuring local artist Kim Howard’s new works inspired by her sojourn to Scotland and France.

It includes watercolor paintings, cards, wine bags and stuffed Portuguese swallows sewn of antique European fabric finds. And her Scottish SEA FOLK piece, inspired by her attendance at Scotland’s storyteller conference in Edinburgh, is painted in watercolor and pen and ink on old pages from an 1824 leatherbound dictionary.

P.S. If you like what you see, Howard will be conducting workshops this summer.

GILMAN CONTEMPORARY, 661 Sun Valley Road—The gallery is featuring “Threadlines” by Alia Ali, who has recently had or is about to have residencies at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition features 20 works—the largest presentation of her work in the American West.

Each photograph is floated inside a frame using the same handmade fabrics seen within the image. The works feature the language of woven patterns from India, Uzbekistan, Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Morocco, France and Louisiana.

GAIL SEVERN GALLERY, 400 First Avenue North, is celebrating 50 years with a new kid on the block. Alicia Tormey, who lives in Bellevue, is an internationally recognized artist and educator known for her vibrant botanical works, ethereal landscapes and innovative encaustic painting techniques that feel as if they’re taking you on a journey into the landscape.

The gallery is also showcasing floral still-lives by Morris Graves and works by Tom Hammick and Hung Liu.

BROSCHOFSKY GALLERIES, 360 East Avenue, is showcasing contemporary photographer David Yarrow’s new works in an exhibition titled “Constructed Realities.” The works, like Yarrow’s others, use iconic backdrops, recognizable celebrities and trained animals.

SUN VALLEY CONTEMPORARY GALLERY, 360 East Avenue, is presenting an exhibition titled “Forged in Metals” featuring animal and human sculptures by such artists as Jim Budish, Cathryn Jenkins and Bill Stark. Also, “Furry Friends,” featuring “Husky Huddle” and the “Spirit of the Rainforest” by Paul Nicklen. And Tracey Sylvester Harris’s oil on canvas evoking such scenes as a “Mountain Ice Rink.”

MESH Gallery, 4th and Leadville streets, is offering such powerful landscape photographs as “McGowan Night Sky Cuso of Summer and “Boulders in Red.”

SADDLETREE GALLERY, 360 East Avenue, is showcasing watercolor landscape prints by Sandra Shaw, Jack Weekes’ serigraphs of local mountain peaks and Dolan Geiman’s colorful, somewhat cartoonish artwork of Indian chiefs.

SUN VALLEY MUSEUM OF ART, Fifth and Leadville streets, is showcasing “Circa 1971” featuring works from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.