Polly Sharp

Polly Sharp is a plein air oil landscape artist.  She has lived her entire life in Oklahoma.  Her paternal great grandmother walked the Trail of Tears with the Cherokee, and her mother’s parents pioneered the prairie, coming from Ireland and settling near Miami, Oklahoma.  Polly paints the Oklahoma landscape plein air in oils on canvas.  Going outside to capture our rolling hills, rambling creeks, magnificent sunrises and sunsets, big sky cloudscapes, and gentle prairie grasses is her joy.  Keeping her gear always ready and loaded, she often rises early to catch the early morning light.  On the way to a scouted location, often something will catch her eye, and she stops to paint there instead.  Polly has been painting plein air about 10 years. She is a self-taught artist, taking private lessons from well-known artists she admires, and on-line studies. She has studied and taken workshops from Cletus Smith, Rick McClure, Phil Starke, Kelli Folsom, Scott Christensen, and Skip Whitcomb.

Polly’s works have won awards and been featured in many locations, including the Edmond Art Association, Oklahoma Art Guild and the Chisholm Trail Art Association.  Her works have been featured by Brown Design Group in Grove; American Royal Art Show, Kansas City; Rusty Gables Spring Stampede, Oklahoma City; Dean Lively Gallery, Edmond; The Artesian Gallery in Sulphur, OK, the Oklahoma Artists Invitational, the Guthrie Walk of Art and Edmond, OK VIBES. She has been juried in and shown in the Red Earth Festival at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center.

Current works are shown at Rusty Gables Gallery, Oklahoma City; the Red Earth Gallery in downtown Oklahoma City, Exhibit C Gallery in Bricktown, Oklahoma City,  and in her home studio in Edmond, Oklahoma.

Long Journey Ahead

Oil on Canvas

$900

Thousands of lives were lost on the forced walk of the Trail of Tears. My ancestors made that journey from Georgia to Northeastern Oklahoma. As a Cherokee woman, I carry that history with me, and I painted this piece to honor the strength of those who survived. It’s a reminder of the endurance and resilience that lives on in us today and of the responsibility we have to remember their stories.