Disciplined, dedicated and in love with the West.

Meet Topher Straus, an artist who has created an entirely new medium to capture nature’s grandeur—America’s pristine national parks from coast to coast, and much more. Gifted with an Impressionist’s eye, Straus constructs evocative imagery through color and line while visually traversing his landscapes with a digital “brush’. By working on a grand scale, he takes the viewer into a fresh realm of artistic experience.

Born in Colorado in 1974, Straus descends from Western pioneer roots and a family with a deep commitment to the arts. He was exposed at a young age to contemporary masterworks through their museum-worthy collections and developed an inimitable style as he processed his own inner world on canvas.

Straus graduated from Syracuse University with a BFA in Film Art, then went on to pursue the dream of working under Academy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Altman, investing a decade in Hollywood and personally directing several narrative and documentary films. Following a move to New Zealand, and the addition of a son to a growing family, Straus returned to Colorado to focus on his own trans- formative view of the world. Initial collector response often included the urge to touch his paintings, presenting the challenge of touch-resistant surfaces. While honing a newfound painting technique via digital tools, he discovered the process of sublimation whereby images could be affixed to a metal surface and sealed, completely protected.