About
Nate Laybourn
American Artist
American Stories. Hidden in Plain Sight.
Nate Laybourn is a nationally recognized artist from the rural flatlands of Northeastern Colorado whose paintings challenge viewers to look twice—and then look again.
From an early age, Nate was driven by an unusual combination of ambition and curiosity. He knew he wanted to become great at something, and art became that pursuit. He spent his childhood sketching, taking every art class he could, studying the masters, and creating self-directed projects simply because he wanted to become better. But even then, Nate understood that becoming an artist meant more than learning how to paint. He wanted to develop a voice of his own. He wanted control over his creative vision. Most of all, he wanted to create something the world had not seen before.
That pursuit took him from the Colorado plains to Denver, where he earned a full-ride scholarship to the Colorado Institute of Art during his senior year of high school. Two years in the city gave him a valuable artistic education, but they also clarified something fundamental about who he was. Nate discovered that his art was inseparable from the rural life he loved.
He returned home to Northeastern Colorado, worked on farms, developed his craft, and began traveling throughout the region to sell his artwork at local events. His connection to rural communities led to commissions, murals, and opportunities that allowed him to grow as a professional artist while remaining firmly connected to the people and places that inspired him.
A local school board member eventually saw an artist and educator in Nate and encouraged him to teach. He spent eight years in the public school system before spending another twelve years at the Sterling Correctional Facility, where he taught computer graphics and managed a print shop program. Throughout his teaching career, Nate never stopped being an artist. He continued painting, accepting commissions, developing his technique, and completing large-scale murals across Northeastern Colorado.
Then, in 2018, decades of ideas finally came together.
Nate began creating the large-scale portraits with hidden imagery that have become the defining characteristic of his work. His first painting in this direction, American Cowboy: Clint, Series 1, represented the realization of an idea that had been quietly developing since childhood.
As a sixth grader, Nate became fascinated by the Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, whose extraordinary portraits were constructed from arrangements of objects, plants, animals, and other recognizable forms. That fascination never left him. Decades later, Nate transformed the basic idea of hidden imagery into something distinctly his own.
Nate is surrounded by his wife Lindsey who manages the details of his business and has four children who have their own inspiring interest as creatives.
ART THAT REVEALS ITSELF
Nate believes the strongest artwork should not give everything away at once.
It should invite you in.
It should make you curious.
It should leave something to discover.
His paintings are deliberately created with multiple levels of viewing. From across a room, the composition creates an immediate visual impact. As the viewer approaches, intricate illustrative details begin to surface. The experience changes with distance, lighting, time, and attention.
Every viewer becomes part of the discovery.
And that is exactly how Nate wants it.
“I want my pieces to read abstractly from 30 feet and yet reveal the illustrative detail from 3 feet.”
The paintings therefore become more than portraits. They become visual puzzles, historical narratives, personal interpretations, and conversations between the artist and the viewer.
No two people necessarily see the same painting in the same way.
A LIFETIME OF IDEAS
Nate's work is the product of a lifetime spent observing, studying, working, teaching, and creating.
His artistic journey began in the fields and small communities of Northeastern Colorado. It continued through formal art education, years of teaching, commissioned work, murals, graphic design, and countless hours spent refining his craft.
But perhaps the most important part of Nate's story is that he never stopped wondering what was possible.
He still has more ideas than time.
“I have so many paintings to paint and so little time.”
Many of those paintings already exist in his mind. Each one is waiting for its turn to become real.
One canvas at a time, Nate continues to build a body of work that is unmistakably his own—work that celebrates American stories while challenging the viewer to see those stories differently.
LOOK CLOSER.
At first glance, Nate's paintings appear to be powerful portraits and compositions rooted in American history and culture.
Then you look closer.
Objects begin to emerge.
Symbols reveal themselves.
Stories unfold.
A second image appears within the first.
From approximately thirty feet away, the work can read almost abstractly—an arrangement of color, shape, texture, and movement. Step within three feet, however, and the painting begins to reveal its secrets. What appeared to be one image becomes many.
This visual discovery is intentional.
Nate wants his paintings to behave like books that cannot be put down. The longer you look, the more you discover. A painting may reveal one story to one person and an entirely different story to someone else.
“I want people to look upon my work as if they are reading a book they can’t put down. You cannot get the full meaning from my artwork by looking at it one time. The painting reveals itself over time.”
That idea is at the heart of Nate's work.
THE AMERICAN SPIRIT
Nate's paintings are deeply influenced by the American experience—the people who built it, the land that shaped it, the traditions that carried it forward, and the freedom and determination that continue to define it.
His subjects often draw from American history, agriculture, the West, hunting, machinery, automobiles, work, and the people who embody the country's character. Yet his paintings are not simply nostalgic representations of the past.
They are layered visual narratives.
Nate takes familiar American imagery and reconstructs it into something unexpected. Vintage advertisements, tools, machinery, firearms, animals, landscapes, historical references, and cultural symbols can become part of a larger portrait, often hidden in plain sight.
The result is artwork that can be appreciated immediately for its visual strength, but rewards the viewer who takes the time to investigate.
