For the past 40 years, Carrie L. Ballantyne has drawn and painted the people of today's ranching and cowboy culture with depth and texture and an emphasis on authenticity. She is best known for her powerful yet sensitive portraits that chronicle men and women of the contemporary West with a timeless quality. "The individuals themselves inspire much of my art," Ballaytnine said. "I enjoy painting representational and intimate portraits of real people - most often family members, personal friends and neighbors." profiled in numerous periodicals over the years, Ballantyne is the recipient of various awards and honors from distinguished Western art shows and museums, Prix de West continues to be a favorite venue, and in 2020 she received the Express Ranches Great American Cowboy Award. "Showing my art alongside many of my heroes at the National Cowboy Museum is an exhilerating and humbling experience," she said. "It is an inspiration I look forward to each year." A student of the Old Masters, Ballantyne refined her style as a graphite portrait artist with encouragement and inspiration from local artists. Working as a camp cook, she accompanied fishermen and hunters into the Absaroka Mountains, her sketchbook never far away. As she became increasingly skilled in pencil, her work came to the attention of painter Ted Feely, who urged her to attend the George Phippen Western Art Show in Arizona. There she not only met the renowned James Bama, who she cites as her biggest influence, but sold most of her drawings, starting her career as a Western fine artist. “I choose to portray country people because they are the ones who live and work around me,” she says. “Tender moments that please me typically appear in my work. I am always striving to communicate all the emotions you can see in a face, posture and other body language.”