Texas is a unique and amazing state no matter where you go. Whether it’s the unforgettable shape of our great state or the incredible, resilient people who make it up, Texas is where it’s at. The Western Gallery wanted to highlight this in their latest exhibition, “Texas Women.”

The exhibition features works from an all-female, all-Texan group of artists. Why? The Western Gallery says it’s because of underrepresentation of women in the art world.

“Women are every bit as worthy of the critical and popular attention that men have long enjoyed, but this discrepancy remains. This realization presents an opportunity to embrace, lift up and recontextualize Texas Women, to reinterpret the legend of this great state through the eyes of its female citizens and to recognize them for their work, which is second to none,” gallery Director and Curator George Irwin says.

The gallery consists of works from 19 artists, including Lucile Wedeking, Lida Steves Plummer, Anna Sophia Lagos, Felice House and others.

Wedeking’s piece, “In Good Company,” starts the gallery off strong with Wedeking’s depiction of a cowgirl atop an orange and white horse surrounded by rugged terrain and nopales, or cacti. Mysterious yet beautiful, it is a stand-out piece The cowgirl is unidentified, with the wide brim of her white Stetson shielding her face. 

We don’t know where in Texas she is or what time period. Although the land is rugged and unforgiving, she seems to be at ease, radiating a calmness only someone familiar with the land would have. She’s at home.

Other exhibition pieces also exude this calming beauty of the land I call home. Artists take everyday Texas symbols — the cacti, the longhorn, the cowboy or cowgirl — and make viewers focus on them. There are no cities in any of the pieces; it’s as if it were the 1800s and Texas was still largely unpopulated. No hustle and bustle except the sound of cattle grazing.

“As Within, So Without” by San Antonio native Lida Steves Plummer features a larger-than-life sized cactus, likely a saguaro, which is the largest in the U.S. at an average of 40 feet tall.  Plummer’s work captures the size of the saguaro perfectly, while bringing in a bold yet not overpowering shade of yellow into the piece. Saguaros are usually green, so the addition of yellow mixed with Plummer’s mirrored shading make it feel like you awoke in the desert at golden hour after resting your eyes.

“Heat” by Alice Leese reminds me of the work it takes to maintain this great land. My grandpa used to be a cowboy, and though I never got to meet him, I see him in this group of anonymous vaqueros, working hard in the brutal Texas sun to bring home a weekly income.

There’s something symbolic about a gallery consisting strictly of female works. Women are the bearers of children, those who bring life into the world. Without women, there would be no artists, and in turn no art. No Texas.