DENVER, CO.- The Denver Art Museum is celebrating the American West with a presentation of Western art and film at the museum. The DAM is featuring William Matthews: Trespassing in January and screening a documentary about Colorado-based artist William Matthews’ journey as he prepared for his solo exhibition. William Matthews: Trespassing is on view now through May 17, 2015.

The exhibition features 27 selected works from Matthews’ early career through recent paintings that exemplify his expertise in watercolor and western American subjects. His main focus has been subjects found in the American West: working cowboys, ranches, rural architecture, and the landscape. Organized by the DAM, Trespassing is included in general museum admission.

"What sets William Matthews’ work apart is that he paints the contemporary American West rather than the Old West,” said Thomas Brent Smith, curator of Western American Art and Director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art at the DAM. “The exhibition shows the arc of the artist’s four decade career, as well as recent works. Matthews is an artist with a great body of work that also continues to challenge himself with new subjects and techniques.”

While primarily known for his cowboy paintings, William Matthews is not himself a cowboy. Instead, he is an interloper—a trespasser—viewing their world from the outside. However, he is no stranger to the West. Matthews is a westerner who lives and works in Denver. Matthews began working as a graphic designer, but dedicated himself to watercolor painting in 1990.

“My mother was an oil painter. She took me to a museum art show when I was a young boy. I saw the watercolors of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Andrew Wyeth,” said Matthews. “And I said to myself, like a true contrarian, I want to learn how to do that!”