Painting the Colors, Light, & Feel of the Southwest
About
Southwestern Impressionist Painter, Author, inventor, & Workshop Instructor
Mike Mahon Fine Art
Where a Family and Art Heritage Meet, and Stories Come to Life
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Mike Mahon
My Family Art Heritage
I didn't choose the Southwest by accident. It chose me — through blood, through story, and through years of standing in sun-drenched places watching light move across adobe walls, ranch houses, mesas, and faces shaped by weather and work.
What draws me back again and again is not just the beauty of these places, but the deep sense of memory they represent. The land remembers. The buildings remember. The people do too. I paint because I want to hold onto that feeling — the quiet gravity of a place that has endured.
New Mexico and West Texas are stripped-down environments. There is no place for anything false to hide. Color becomes purer. Shapes become simpler. Light tells the truth. That honesty is what I'm after.
The Taos Connection:
The story on the home page begins with my grandfather K.W. Hopkins bartering prescriptions at his drug store for paintings on the Taos plaza in 1913.
He followed his brother Ben Hopkins there. Ben became a working artist, and built a life in a world his own family had tried to deny him. He began an art heritage that lasted from the early 1900's to the 21st century. My ties to Northern New Mexico and its artistic past are not admiration from a distance — they are personal and deep-rooted.
But that is only half the inheritance.
The West Texas Legacy:
My Grandmother Who Painted on Paper Bags
On my father's side, the story begins not on a sun-washed plaza but on a dirt-poor West Texas cotton farm where there were no expectations of developing artistic talents.
Lola Brown Mahon was an exception.
In a world defined by hardship and bare necessity, she was an artist, a reader of poetry, and a lover of great literature. All of this she shared with her seven children.
They grew up educated and genuinely cultured, many of them able to recite long passages of poetry from memory. Her paintings were passed down through the family. And when there was no canvas and no money, she would save the brown paper bags and cardboard boxes from the grocery store, flatten them out carefully, and paint on those. That image has never left me. A woman on a cotton farm, smoothing out a paper bag so she could make something beautiful.
Pastel by Lola Brown Mahon painted on flattened paper grocery bag in 1887
She received scant recognition in her lifetime but I’m privileged to honor her in mine.
My father carried her into the world with him. He was a West Texas man — in every other way exactly what you'd expect: drawn to farming and ranching, to the law, to horses, to the wide-open land. And yet he recited Longfellow. He talked about his mother's paintings. He had a reverence for great literature that was, by every measure of his environment, completely out of place.
And that gave me permission.
As a young man surrounded by contemporaries whose entire world was football, farming, and ranching, my father's example quietly told me that a man could love art without apology. That it was not softness — it was a different kind of strength. His mother had painted on paper bags. I could pick up a brush and mean it.
Those two inheritances — the Taos pharmacist who traded in paintings and his art pioneering brother, and the West Texas grandmother who never stopped making them no matter what she had to paint on — are the twin roots of everything I do.
MEET THE ARTIST
When someone lives with one of my paintings, it becomes more than an image on a wall. The landscapes of Northern New Mexico reveal themselves slowly much like my family art heritage in Taos revealed itself over three generations. The light changes through the seasons, colors deepen, and small relationships between shapes begin to emerge the longer you look. A painting should reward that kind of attention. My expectation is that the work will settle into your home the way the land itself settles into memory — quietly, but permanently.
If you feel a connection to the landscapes and culture of the Southwest, I invite you to spend time with the work here in my studio.
And if you'd like a more personal look into the process behind the paintings, you're welcome to join my VIP Insiders list below where I share new work, studio notes, and reflections from the road.
Painting the Land of Enchantment
“My art is about authenticity and simply letting the subject matter speak for itself. The Christian astronomer, Johannes Kepler, once said, ‘I was merely thinking God’s thoughts after him.’
It's an honor and privilege to make a career of painting God's thoughts about the beauty of landscape and the human face after him."
Mike Mahon
Mike Mahon’s style is impressionistic realism. His portraits and Southwestern landscape paintings seem to intensify and exaggerate the story he wants to tell in them. Ordinary people and places are suddenly transformed when Mike focuses on the heart and soul of his subjects. As Hunter Ingalls, art educator and art critic, stated in a newspaper show critique, “Mike Mahon (pronounced May'-hon) is an artist with a clear command of both the oil and pastel media... (his) works reveal an ability to single out simple, unassuming details for special emphasis, elevating the imagery into radiant, dream-like originality.”
Mike doesn't approach his work in a formulaic way, limiting himself to only one kind image or technique. He paints what he loves, not what he thinks will sell. That keeps his work fresh and spontaneous.
Mike Mahon is an established authority in the art world.
• 50+ years as a successful professional artist
• 20+ years as an in demand workshop instructor
• Multiple Fine Art Awards
• Art Exhibition Awards Judge
• The author of two popular art books
• Inventor of “The Pastel Porter”–a revolutionary pastel plein air painting system
• Popular seminar teacher/museum speaker
• A featured instructor/demonstrator at the 2026 International Association of Pastel Societies & a featured artist in the 2026 book,“Pastel a Celebration III”.
“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.”— Henry Ward Beecher
Art Books by Mike Mahon
Mike features 190 New Mexico landscape paintings in his recently published 186 page book, "Painting the Land of Enchantment”.
Mike’s 123 page “Art Principles” book serves both the artist and the collector as it lays out the fundamental principles of art that he practices and teaches based on over 50 years as a professional artist.
“As an oil & pastel painter, I record what a photograph or a quick glance misses.”
“During my professional career as an artist and photographer, I realized that when it comes to landscapes and portraits, there is a profound difference between photography and a painting. In 1/125 of a second the photographer captures an instant of time of the subject. What a difference it makes when an artist spends hours contemplating the same scene, the same face, as it transforms in light and emotion. In our entire lives few of us contemplate a single image for more than a few seconds or a minute or two. Focused concentration in observation is the job of the artist. That is why a frequent response to one of my paintings is, ‘I've seen that scene many times but never relized how beautiful it is, or never notices how colorful it really is.”
“I'm honored to be an instructor/demonstrator at the 2026 Convention of the International Association of Pastel Societies in Albuquerque, NM”.
Mike will also be a featured artist in the 2026 “Pastel a Celebration III ” book published by IAPS and available at this Convention.
Learn how 8 master pastelists work their magic! Join me as I compete on June, 18, 2026 from 1-4pm for "DUELING DEMOS" IAPS Pastel - International Association of Pastel Societies Convention! Four sets of 2 artists each will compete for the best painting of the same reference photo per set. The concept of the Dueling Demos is four sets of two artists painting from a shared reference. The audience can walk around each pair, watch them demonstrate and engage with the artists. A fun event!Register for IAPS and register for this event. Space is limited and this is not open to the public, so be sure to register for it.
COLLECTOR REVIEWS
Words from those who’ve welcomed art into their lives.
“The detail Mike puts into his work is unmatched. So many collectors have said many times they can't believe his pastel work! Clients, customers and collectors swoon over his vibrant color choices.’’
Mike's work definitely strikes a cord with our Texas residents! The canyons and landscapes are always the collectors favorites. They see the sentiment in the space seem to spark a personal memory for them.
The New Mexico pieces are equally as gorgeous and many clients associate it with a vacation spot they have been to or a road they have traveled along in their life's journey.
We believe Mike’s work will be passed down for many generations to come!
— Reece Beddington,
Reserve Gallery, Amarillo, Texas
“Mike's work represents both exceptional artistic skill and that rare quality of emotional resonance that makes a piece truly unforgettable.”
“I was immediately struck by Mike Mahon's extraordinary mastery of light when I first encountered his work in a gallery in Taos, New Mexico.
What sets Mike apart is his intuitive understanding of how light transforms throughout the day - his palettes shift naturally with the conditions he's capturing, whether it's the soft, gentle colors of early morning or the dramatic warmth of sunset reflecting off mountains and fences.”
— Andrea Matus-Magee, Artist/collector, Santa Fe, NM
“Mike's paintings are a vibrant celebration of Southwestern culture, infused with the rich, colorful influences of Taos, Santa Fe and the New Mexico countryside.”
— Dennis & Kim Garvey,
Collectors, Amarillo, Tx
“[Mike] is a master of design and he is one of the best of the best in the New Mexico art scene..”
{Mike] is the consummate professional in the way he approaches the design and process of creating a painting. We are fortunate to own a lovely painting I purchased from him years ago and it has become not only one of our favorite pieces, but also evokes special memories of a week in Taos painting with Mike. His paintings just say “New Mexico” with his beautiful colors, skillful composition, and his mastery of his medium, both in pastel and oil. His deep roots in New Mexico are evident in the historic locations he choses to paint. He is a master of design and he is one of the best of the best in the New Mexico art scene. I am blessed not only to be a collector but to call him a friend and a teacher.
— Elizabeth Cooper,
Owner Operator BlueBird Studios, Santa Fe, NM
“Susan & I have several of his original paintings, not to simply decorate our home but to enrich it with fine art images of places that we sense are present and a part of us though far away.”
Mike Mahon shares our love of New Mexico and captures its unique light & beauty by taking his pastels and easel outside to the sites where he paints what his expert eye sees and what his soul feels, thus capturing the essence of the place as well as anyone possibly can.
That’s why Susan & I have several of his original paintings, not to simply decorate our home but to enrich it with fine art images of places that we sense are present and a part of us though far away.
— Don and Susan Chapman
Elgin, TX
VIP INSIDER
Mike Mahon | Southwest impressionist painter
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Whether artist or art collector, you will learn how to understand, remember, and apply the most critical art principles to create better paintings and judge the quality of fine art.
• A 20 page PDF clickable sample of Mike’s recently published book on art principles and his unique artist’s journey
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• Early access to Special Art Announcements and Premiums.
• Invitations to in-person gallery events
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• Plus, you'll learn about the stories behind Mike’s body of work, get behind-the-scenes video exclusive to VIP Insiders and more.
Painting the Colors, Light, & Feel of the Southwest
