WAURIKA — When artist Shannon Smith set out to create a painting representing bullfighter Rex Dunn’s battle with cancer, she had no idea how much emotion would come out on canvas.

“Stage IV,” a 30x50 oil painting, began as a photograph Smith took only for reference, but it won the Best of Show award and was honorable mention in the mixed media division at the Waurika Fine Arts Festival in the Rock Island Depot.

On first viewing, few people viewing “Stage IV” realized it was more than a bullfighter fending off a bull. However, upon taking a closer look, the brush strokes, the colors, bring out the intensity of the painting. And the story it tells touches many hearts.

When Smith traveled to Ada to photograph Dunn’s bull El Matador to use as a subject for the painting, she was already concerned about the health of Dunn, the longtime Hastings rancher, legendary rodeo bullfighter and family friend who has been fighting stage IV cancer.

Smith had an idea of how she wanted to represent Dunn, but at the time she was unaware her father, longtime Waurika resident Steve Goza, who is the same age as Dunn, would also be diagnosed with cancer in the same stage.

“I found out that my dad also had stage four cancer. He has a very aggressive cancer. And Rex is also stage four,” she said.

“Shannon is a good friend of mine. She went to the bullfights that we put on over there,” Dunn said. “She told me she was going to do a painting, but then I’d never heard much about it. She said something about stage four, and I thought it had to do with her art class, like the grade or level she was in.”

Dunn didn’t see the painting until about two weeks ago.

“I was overwhelmed with it,” he said, although at that moment, he didn’t realize the connection of “Stage IV.”

“She said stage four and it never clicked,” said Dunn, adding that once he made the connection to the title and his illness, the painting became even more personal.

“She did a tremendous job on it and she is very talented,” Dunn said. “I think this is a piece that everyone should see. It’s a fight for life, that’s what I used to do as a bullfighter, and now.”

Dunn was diagnosed stage IV cancer in 2007 and doctors felt he wouldn’t live past this past spring. However, they hadn’t considered the Rex Dunn’s tenacious desire to live.

“If you lay down and give up (dying is) what will happen. Cancer is a mental deal, it works on your head, and if you keep positive thoughts and keep the will to live and not give up, that has more to do with it than any medicine,” Dunn said, who also attributes the role religious faith, the strength of his family and friends like Smith have played in his fight with the disease.

In doing the preparation for the painting, Smith said Dunn set it up so she could go watch bullfights and photograph them from the platform at the arena.

“I think that it’s really important, for an artist, that a piece show a life experience in some way,” she said, noting that the photography experiences gave her a better grasp on the concept of comparing bullfighting a fighting cancer.

“You have an uncontrollable force coming at you,” she said about the analogy. “It’s going to get you or it’s not. It’s a fight.

“This has been a big bump in the road for all of us. I think the bullfight is a better analogy of what the fight for your life can be like, for anyone with those types of illnesses, the reality is like a bull coming at you. It’s a sad reality.”

Smith’s husband Macky helped build the frame and stretch the canvas, after the couple had experimented with various frames and bases. While the frame took a day to build, Smith put in about 15 hours during a two-week period doing the painting.

Smith, who graduated this last year from the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma in Chickasha, has a distinctly style to her work that brings together realistic, abstract and impressionist techniques. She credits a USAO professor for giving her the freedom to explore her talent.

A graduate of Waurika High School, Smith enrolled at USAO in 2001, then took a break to move to Missouri, getting married and have a child, Grady, who is now 3 1/2 years-old.

She returned to Oklahoma and USAO in 2007, completing a bachelor’s degree in fine arts earlier this year. She felt the education experience was extremely important in growing as an artist.

“On the creative side, (school instructors) really help you understand how to develop your concept on what you want your work to say,” Smith said. “To figure out creatively your style, and learn how to do it the right way. As you develop more and more, (instructors) give you more freedom and help you determine what your art is trying to say.

“It’s important, in my opinion, for art to have a voice.”

Her artist’s statement, written for a graduation portfolio at USAO, reflects the concept. “These minor and major life experiences, depending on how they are perceived, inspire my work and provide volume for the voice of my art.”

In addition to the Waurika show, Smith entered “Stage IV” in a show in Oklahoma City. The piece will be on display at the Christian Crossroads Life Center, near the Jefferson County Hospital in Waurika. She has no plans to sell it anytime soon.

A year ago, Smith entered another large scale piece, “Sanctuary Drop Off,” in the 2008 Waurika art show, where it won an award. She sold that piece at the 2009 Momentum Art Show in Oklahoma City, which draws hundreds of entries applications from Oklahoma artists under age 30.

Also this year, she was among 60 artists whose pieces were accepted for the Tulsa Momentum Art Show, where she entered a lighthearted piece titled, “Crown It,” a still life of whiskey and shot glasses on a canvas made from Crown Royal bags.

This is a list of the artists in various media who won the top places during the 2009 Waurika Fine Arts Festival, a juried art show sponsored by the Waurika Public Library and the Waurika Sorosis Club:

• Best of Show: Shannon Smith, Waurika, “Stage IV,” Mixed Media Painting

• Professional 1st place: Tom Biggs, Medicine Park, “Wet Rush Hour,” Water Color

• Professional 2nd place: Wolf Kiessling, Duncan, “Prairie Monarch,” Sculpture

• Professional 3rd place: Toni Hopper, Duncan, “Weathered — Shiloh Barn,” Photograph

• Amateur 1st place: Kristie Cox, Duncan, “Desert Trail,” Oil Painting

• Amateur 2nd place: Sammy Croy, Duncan, “Eagle Feathers,” Monochrome Oil on Porcelain

• Amateur 3rd place: Susan Elliott, Marlow, “Blue Vase,” Pottery

• Junior 1st place: Hope Henderson, Waurika, “Nature,” Drawing