Michael Duane is a Kansas native who found a love for both art and nature at a young age. He has since combined these two passions, creating bold and colorful skyscapes with pastels. "In my art, I prefer to focus on the wonders of the skies while condensing and abstracting the landscape into a pleasing design while at the same time maintaining the identity and mood of a representational painting. I came to realize the Kansas version of the oceans and mountains are the building, towering storms over the beautiful, gently rolling Flint Hills. They can be beautiful, nurturing and awe-inspiring and at the same time showing the awesome power of Mother Nature of which man can only realize the fragility of our existence on this earth." -Michael Duane