Ventana Fine Art

John Axton has been with Ventana Fine Art Gallery since we opened. During this period, his simple, dramatic, often haunting imagery has created a large following. His minimal horizons - even a single marble - draw the viewer into the canvas to peacefully contemplate the fusion of reality and imagination.

My paintings are made in response to things I see in the natural world. They capture a place at a particular time. And they capture a moment in my sensibility. My overriding goal as a painter is to create a work, an artifact if you will, that resonates with the spirit of the landscape that inspired me to begin painting.

Born in New York and educated in Missouri, Jim Agius has been an artist all his life. After earning a Bronze Star for service in Vietnam, Agius moved in 1970 to a small mountain town in Colorado, where he established and operated a number of small businesses from restaurants to real-estate.

He painted during his free time, putting into practice the principles he had absorbed during many hours of visiting galleries and museums, as well as drawing wildlife and other subjects of interest.While visiting friends who operated a small foundry in Gunnison, Agius picked up some clay, began working with it and quickly realized his affinity for three-dimensional work.

Jimmy Cook was raised in Mancos, Colorado. Starting in his pre-teen years, he worked in the family business, Aspencraft, where he quickly learned to admire and appreciate the natural beauty of Aspen and other woods. He spent much of his life in the outdoors both for recreation and work and has marveled at the beauty of nature.

Transitioning into the life of a full-time artist required Harris's passion to become his profession as well. Prior to developing as an artist, Harris spent many years in the area of sustainable urban development (specifically real estate and hotels), a conventional career in which he was quite successful, but not fully satisfied.