By Hannah Barricks
Photography by Crystal Wise
Fort Worth artist Jacob Lovett sits on a leather sofa at Bowie House. He’s fresh from the buzzy debut of “West of Real” which began as a series of “Western Windows,” an exhibit in the hotel’s gallery that began as a series but evolved into a literal and metaphorical framing device for his work.
In them, Lovett explores Western themes using his signature minimalist style and window motif. Each piece features a mysterious cowboy in the foreground’s center and a landscape “window” behind him, where Lovett paints the rolling hills and streams, some committed to memory from childhood.
“Growing up in Fort Worth, I’ve always been at arm’s reach from that lifestyle, but I was never fully immersed in it,” Lovett says.
Those identity dynamics, somewhere between insider and outsider, are the essence of his work.
“The American cowboy already comes with so much imagery,” he says. “It represents longing, an ideal, and maybe it was something I wanted to become.”
Lovett didn’t come to art through traditional channels. In 2018, after a friend asked him to paint a family portrait, he bought supplies, Googled “how to paint,” and took a leap. That commission sparked a passion that changed the course of his life. Unlike the solitary travelers in his “Western Windows,” though, he wasn’t alone. Lovett spent the next years developing his technique with mentor and art teacher Laert Aleksi Xhaferi, or “Alexi.”
Lovett transitioned to full-time painting in 2021 after losing a corporate job during the pandemic.
“I was stepping into the unknown, if you will,” he says. The gamble paid off, seeing Lovett’s work featured in Cowboys & Indians, Western Art Collector, Southwest Art Magazine, and Fort Worth Magazine, among others, in the following years. His growing list of exhibitions includes the Coors Young Guns show in Denver, the C.M. Russell First Strike Friday in Montana, and the upcoming 2025 Far West Show in Austin.
As his recognition grows, Lovett credits much of his success to his support system, including family and mentors. His mother’s work ethic has inspired him. She became a single mother to three when Lovett, her middle child, was five. His father-in-law and mentor, Jim Gresham, entered the picture a few years later. An ex-football player with a career in oil and gas, Gresham filled a masculine void in Lovett’s young life for which he’s forever grateful.
Photo courtesy of Jacob Lovett
“You would think he’d have a brute personality,” Lovett says. “But that couldn’t be further from the truth. He has the kindest heart and most loving soul.” Lovett knows this masculine influence changed his life.
His pastor, Jeff Sanders, provides a similar presence, helping Lovett develop his Christian faith and humbling him to a greater power.
This collaborative spirit extends into Lovett’s professional life. He has built strong relationships with galleries and fellow artists, including Tyler Gwynn, with whom he’ll share a joint exhibition this year at Commerce Gallery in Lockhart, thanking the galleries he’s worked with throughout his career for the opportunities they provided.
With Fort Worth’s unequivocal support, Lovett hopes to take the “Western Windows” international.
“I want to show the world my cowboy image and its message,” he says. “But it is most effective here at home. Where my heart is, in Fort Worth.”
Lovett is working on a coffee table book next, sharing the stories behind his most iconic pieces.
In his work, Lovett wrestles with the paradoxes of the modern man by viewing him through masculinity personified, the cowboy of old, stripped bare, with nothing for identification except a window into his past.
In a world that often prizes flash over substance, where people move at the speed of light to nowhere, Lovett’s art is a reminder that strength can be quiet, soulful, and deeply human.
And like the best Westerns, the story is still unfolding — one window at a time.