About Trey McCarley

Trey McCarley is drawn to the life within a landscape: the movement of water, the passage of light, and the atmosphere that gives a place its character. Working in oil, he brings careful observation and instinctive expression into balance. His paintings hold the tension between what can be seen and what can only be felt.

His marks are impulsive yet rhythmic. Intense color carries subtle shifts in temperature that reveal themselves slowly. Up close, the surface breaks into gesture and abstraction. At a distance, those separate marks gather into a recognizable world. The energy of each stroke remains within the stillness of the whole. Order emerges without erasing the forces that shaped it.

While earning a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Arkansas, McCarley developed his understanding of space, proportion, and the relationship between design and experience. He then spent three years apprenticing under American Impressionist Robert Moore, studying Russian Impressionism and refining his visual judgment.

For McCarley, painting is a spiritual practice grounded in foundational truths. Guided by the phrase Painting in Spirit and Truth, he seeks fidelity to the subject and freedom in his response. The work asks for conviction in the mark and humility before what is being observed. Within that balance, painting becomes a way of attending closely to a world that will not hold still—to give lasting form to a passing moment.

“The pursuit is to bring the viewer into an experiential moment in time,” he says, “and to paint it in a way that is always alive.”

In 2017, McCarley was featured in Southwest Art magazine’s 21 Under 31: Young Artists to Watch. His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the United States, including Jackson, Wyoming, where he maintains his primary representation, as well as Park City, Charleston, Tucson, Whitefish, and Denver. He participates annually in the Jackson Hole QuickDraw and Auction. His Colorado studio welcomes visitors by appointment.