K.C. Turnbull is an American painter whose work explores the enduring relationship between nature, beauty, light, and the human spirit. Working across oil, mixed media, and layered abstraction, Turnbull draws from the natural world to create luminous works centered on wonder, renewal, and our connection to something larger than ourselves.

Born on her family’s farm in Colorado and raised in Denver, Turnbull grew up between two worlds: the cultural life of the city and the expansive landscapes and working traditions of the American West. Time spent on family farms and ranches in Colorado and Wyoming cultivated an early relationship with land, horses, agriculture, and stewardship. These experiences continue to inform both the imagery and underlying philosophy of her work.

Creativity was equally embedded in her upbringing. Her mother, traveled extensively photographing and documenting women, culture, and the arts; her father is an accomplished ceramicist and with her stepmother they have maintained their creative practices alongside their professional and family lives; and her grandmother who lived her life boldly, adored her family. adventures, pioneering businesses, and becoming a Whirly-Girl helicopter pilot embodied a spirit of independence, curiosity, and possibility. Together, these influences established a foundation in which creativity was understood not as separate from life, but as a way of engaging more attentively with it.

Turnbull’s artistic formation began early through dance, music, and visual art. As a teenager she trained with the Boston Ballet, an experience that instilled an enduring sensitivity to movement, discipline, rhythm, and form. She later pursued studies in painting, design, and fine art at the Rhode Island School of Design, the University of Hawai‘i, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. The convergence of formal training, intuitive practice, and later graduate studies in theology and contemplative traditions contributed to an artistic language in which observation and abstraction, the material and the spiritual, continually intersect.

Turnbull began exhibiting while continuing her artistic education and has sustained a studio practice for more than three decades. Throughout her career, she has balanced the roles of artist, educator and collaborator, while motherhood has remained at the heart of her life and creative journey. Raising her three children in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley and later in Bend, Oregon, Turnbull continued to paint, teach, and exhibit. Family life remained closely connected to education, sports, agriculture, horsemanship, 4-H, and FFA, reinforcing values of responsibility, resilience, curiosity, and stewardship that have long informed her practice.

For more than a decade, Turnbull has also collaborated with her brother, Brown W. Cannon 3, bringing his unique scope and acclaimed photography into dialogue with her painting and mixed-media work. Their shared visual exploration of Colorado, Wyoming, and Hawai‘i reflects an enduring connection to place, memory, family, and the natural world.

Rather than approaching nature simply as subject matter, Turnbull understands it as teacher, sanctuary, and source of renewal. Flowers, trees, animals, fish, water, gardens, and expansive passages of color recur throughout her work, not as literal description but as a visual vocabulary through which she considers growth, interconnectedness, resilience, abundance, and transformation.

Turnbull lives and works in the Fort Worth area of Texas, where she paints from her barn studio and remains deeply rooted in family life. Her enduring relationship with horses, land, and the traditions of the American West exists alongside a lifetime of artistic inquiry and cultural experience.

Turnbull’s practice reflects more than three decades of sustained inquiry into color, light, nature, and the expressive possibilities of painting and mixed media art. Moving fluidly between representation and abstraction, her work brings together a sophisticated visual vocabulary shaped by formal study, lived experience, and an enduring attentiveness to the natural world. At the heart of her practice Turnbull believes that art has the ability to awaken wonder, deepen connection, and renew our encounter with the divine.

SELECTED ART EXHIBITIONS

2023-2026 New Paintings and Mixed Media Art, Hot Box Betty, Bend, OR

2024 -2026 A Bar A Ranch, Western Art Exhibition, Encampment, Wyoming

2016 Miami and Palm Springs Art Fairs, Jenny Green Gallery

2015 Spoleto, Mitchell Hill Gallery, Charleston, South Carolina

2015 New Works, Jenny Green Gallery, Bend, Oregon

2011 Color Frequency, Visions West Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2010 BICA Gallery, Bend, Oregon

2010 Exhibit 970, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado

2008 Harvey Meadows Gallery, Aspen, Colorado

2008 Big n’ Bold, Aspen Chapel Gallery, Aspen, Colorado

2008 Political Collage, Anderson Ranch, Snowmass, Colorado

2008 Maybe Yes, Maybe No, Harvey Meadows Gallery, Aspen, Colorado

2007 The Roaring Fork Open, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado

2007 Summer Exhibition, Visions West Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2007 SAW, Studio for Arts and Works, Carbondale, Colorado

2007 Visions West Gallery, Bozeman, Montana

2007 Visions West Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2006 Substance of Color, Agora Gallery, New York City, NY

2006 New Works, Aspen Artists Gallery, Aspen, Colorado

2000 Love 4 Sale, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado

SELECTED TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 Golden Collaboration, Hot Box Betty, Bend, Oregon

2024 Golden Collaboration, Jenny Green Gallery, Sisters Cottages, Sisters, Oregon

2019 Golden Collaboration, Loloma Lodge, McKenzie, Oregon

2017 Golden, First Friday, Sotheby’s, Portland, Oregon

2015 Golden, Downtown Bend, First Friday Spotlight,

Patagonia, Cowgirl Cash, Hot Box Betty, Bend, Oregon

2014 Golden Collaboration New Works, Pearl Ranch Studio, Bend, Oregon

2005 Magidson Fine Art, Aspen, Colorado

1996 Figure Drawings, The New York School of Visual Arts Gallery, New York, NY

1995 Pirate Contemporary Art Oasis, Denver, Colorado

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2018-2026 New Works, Hot Box Betty, Bend, Oregon

2022 Bend Spotlight, Fawn Lane Studio, Bend Arts and Culture

2018 Pilgrimage, Pearl Ranch Studio, Bend, Oregon

2010 Mixed Media, Thump, Bend, Oregon

2010 Sotheby’s of Bend, Bend, Oregon

2008 Jubilation, Blue Streak Gallery, Wilmington, Delaware

2008 All Good News, Visions West Gallery, Denver, Colorado

2007 Here and Now, Carbondale Council for Arts, Carbondale, Colorado

2006 Spirit of Spring, Village Smithy, Carbondale, Colorado

2006 Summer Love, Studio 88, Basalt, Colorado

2004 Abundance, Studio 88, Basalt, Colorado

2000 New Works, Union Station, Denver, Colorado