Ginger Glower, 12x16 inches oil on canvas panel by Kenney Mencher
$375.00
Sold Out
FREE SHIPPING THIS WORK IS ORIGINAL (NOT A PRINT OR GICLEE)
Shipping takes 3-4 Weeks
I have a kind of fascination with painting gingers. A couple of people in my family have that kind of skin coloring and hair coloring and I've always been taken with it ever since I was a little boy. There's a sort of translucency to redhead's skin and the color of the hair and the sheen of it are really interesting and quite beautiful to see in different kinds of light. I suppose there's even kind of temperament associated with gingers that some people call fiery or passionate and I suppose that's what I was trying to communicate in this portrait of this gentleman's face.
There are some concepts in art that are almost "buzzwords" that artists banter about and use constantly and one of them is the term "negative space." In this portrait I was trying to create a painting that didn't have a predictable or what I think of as boring composition. A lot of portraits that I see and kind of like, often placed ahead in the center of the composition, which is completely predictable. In this portrait I shifted to head to the lower quarter of the composition and let three quarters of the picture be so-called "negative space." I suppose you could define negative space as the area where things aren't in a photograph or a painting. So the background has to be kind of important because it's pressing down on the figure. In this instance I tried to bury the color and color temperature of the background and play with the colors of the shadows on the wall behind the figure. I pulled some of the colors of the shadows also into the flesh tones and into the face and I think this works really well with the translucent kind of skin that a ginger person has.
This painting was done in the "alla prima" method. The alla prima is an Italian phrase that means 'at first attempt'. It refers to a wet-on-wet approach whereby wet paint is applied to previous layers of still-wet paint, often in a single sitting. Over the years, the technique has been adopted and adapted by artists from Van Gogh to Velázquez.
In particular I try to approach painting in several ways, I want the drawing skills, color, and anatomy to be accurate but I also try to make the compositions more interesting by avoiding a “bull’s eye” (symmetrical) composition in favor of a more exciting slightly off center or “asymmetrical” composition. I’m also attempting to work with brush work and thick and thin paint in a more stylized and calligraphic way. I want the paint to be thickest where the light is the brightest and thinner in the darker areas. The direction of the brush strokes is meant to follow and amplify the contours of the forms and make it feel more tangible.
Warning these are the only sites authorized to sell my art:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/kmencher
https://www.kenney-mencher.net/
http://kenney-mencher.com/
A Bit About Me
I was born in Brooklyn February of 1965. During much of my childhood I lived in Brooklyn, the Bronx, upstate NY, Sarasota, Florida and Manhattan. (Both my mother and father divorced and remarried.) The real hero of my childhood is my older brother Marc who literally changed my diapers, acted as my protector and as my role model.
I started to learn to paint and draw when I was six or seven years old and was convinced that I would be an artist from that age on.
As a teen at the High School of Art and Design I got my best training in Irwin Greenberg’s class where he taught me how to draw, oil paint and watercolor. I also attended classes at the Cooper Union and Art Students League.
My parents threw me out in my senior year of high school, so I earned my GED and worked construction on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was a rough time but my older brother and his partner Kirk rescued me by inviting me to move with them to Cincinnati, Ohio to live and study. While a college student, I worked in restaurants and painted as much as I could. After a year at the University of Cincinnati, I went back to the Bronx where I finished college at CUNY Lehman. Lehman is a fantastic college.
After completing my undergraduate studies, I lived in California and then Ohio completing my two masters’ degrees in Art History and Studio Art. After school I was lucky enough to have dual careers as an exhibiting artist and tenured professor.
In 2014 I began to work on paintings with a strong homoerotic content. Despite excellent sales and well received shows, the galleries I worked with wouldn’t show my new queer work, so I’ve been successfully working mainly directly with my collectors. This change has freed me and allowed me to focus on themes and subjects that, in the past, were rejected or resulted in censorship.
Things are going great! In 2016, after eighteen years of teaching art history and studio courses, I resigned a tenured professorship to pursue painting full time.
____________________________________________________________
Ratings and Reviews
Michael
Rated 5 out of 5
Thank you for the beautiful drawing !!!! You are a great talent and a wonderful man . God bless and many thanks !
JoeyL06
Rated 5 out of 5
Absolute amazing piece! I love the art and the artist. I will be definitively purchasing more art pieces.
RJ
Rated 5 out of 5
Wow. I've admired Kenney's work for a while, and decided to purchase this work as a gift for a friend. Seeing his work in person is totally different from seeing the photos online... the textures and colors are beautiful. Too bad for my friend, I'm keeping this one for myself! It was packed very very well and arrived in perfect shape. Highly recommended!
PoojiDung
Rated 5 out of 5
Another fantastic piece of art from Mr. Mencher. Speedy shipping and well packaged. Thanks!
Rodolfo
Rated 5 out of 5
I have admired this artist work for quite some time now and always wanted to acquire one of his pieces. I was lucky enough to find this one available and the seller was extremely helpful throughout the whole transaction. Upon receiving this item I was beyond astonished at the care given to how the item was shipped. Talk about professionalism to a T!!! I looked at this piece through strong light and very strong magnification and needless to say, I was totally overwhelmed by just the sheer technique and artistry of his work! My Lord, what an amazing talent he possesses!!! I’ll be purchasing many more items from him as soon as I possibly can. This is definitely going to be A focal point in my vast art collection!!! Beyond over the moon thrilled!!!
Shipping takes 3-4 Weeks
I have a kind of fascination with painting gingers. A couple of people in my family have that kind of skin coloring and hair coloring and I've always been taken with it ever since I was a little boy. There's a sort of translucency to redhead's skin and the color of the hair and the sheen of it are really interesting and quite beautiful to see in different kinds of light. I suppose there's even kind of temperament associated with gingers that some people call fiery or passionate and I suppose that's what I was trying to communicate in this portrait of this gentleman's face.
There are some concepts in art that are almost "buzzwords" that artists banter about and use constantly and one of them is the term "negative space." In this portrait I was trying to create a painting that didn't have a predictable or what I think of as boring composition. A lot of portraits that I see and kind of like, often placed ahead in the center of the composition, which is completely predictable. In this portrait I shifted to head to the lower quarter of the composition and let three quarters of the picture be so-called "negative space." I suppose you could define negative space as the area where things aren't in a photograph or a painting. So the background has to be kind of important because it's pressing down on the figure. In this instance I tried to bury the color and color temperature of the background and play with the colors of the shadows on the wall behind the figure. I pulled some of the colors of the shadows also into the flesh tones and into the face and I think this works really well with the translucent kind of skin that a ginger person has.
This painting was done in the "alla prima" method. The alla prima is an Italian phrase that means 'at first attempt'. It refers to a wet-on-wet approach whereby wet paint is applied to previous layers of still-wet paint, often in a single sitting. Over the years, the technique has been adopted and adapted by artists from Van Gogh to Velázquez.
In particular I try to approach painting in several ways, I want the drawing skills, color, and anatomy to be accurate but I also try to make the compositions more interesting by avoiding a “bull’s eye” (symmetrical) composition in favor of a more exciting slightly off center or “asymmetrical” composition. I’m also attempting to work with brush work and thick and thin paint in a more stylized and calligraphic way. I want the paint to be thickest where the light is the brightest and thinner in the darker areas. The direction of the brush strokes is meant to follow and amplify the contours of the forms and make it feel more tangible.
Warning these are the only sites authorized to sell my art:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/kmencher
https://www.kenney-mencher.net/
http://kenney-mencher.com/
A Bit About Me
I was born in Brooklyn February of 1965. During much of my childhood I lived in Brooklyn, the Bronx, upstate NY, Sarasota, Florida and Manhattan. (Both my mother and father divorced and remarried.) The real hero of my childhood is my older brother Marc who literally changed my diapers, acted as my protector and as my role model.
I started to learn to paint and draw when I was six or seven years old and was convinced that I would be an artist from that age on.
As a teen at the High School of Art and Design I got my best training in Irwin Greenberg’s class where he taught me how to draw, oil paint and watercolor. I also attended classes at the Cooper Union and Art Students League.
My parents threw me out in my senior year of high school, so I earned my GED and worked construction on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was a rough time but my older brother and his partner Kirk rescued me by inviting me to move with them to Cincinnati, Ohio to live and study. While a college student, I worked in restaurants and painted as much as I could. After a year at the University of Cincinnati, I went back to the Bronx where I finished college at CUNY Lehman. Lehman is a fantastic college.
After completing my undergraduate studies, I lived in California and then Ohio completing my two masters’ degrees in Art History and Studio Art. After school I was lucky enough to have dual careers as an exhibiting artist and tenured professor.
In 2014 I began to work on paintings with a strong homoerotic content. Despite excellent sales and well received shows, the galleries I worked with wouldn’t show my new queer work, so I’ve been successfully working mainly directly with my collectors. This change has freed me and allowed me to focus on themes and subjects that, in the past, were rejected or resulted in censorship.
Things are going great! In 2016, after eighteen years of teaching art history and studio courses, I resigned a tenured professorship to pursue painting full time.
____________________________________________________________
Ratings and Reviews
Michael
Rated 5 out of 5
Thank you for the beautiful drawing !!!! You are a great talent and a wonderful man . God bless and many thanks !
JoeyL06
Rated 5 out of 5
Absolute amazing piece! I love the art and the artist. I will be definitively purchasing more art pieces.
RJ
Rated 5 out of 5
Wow. I've admired Kenney's work for a while, and decided to purchase this work as a gift for a friend. Seeing his work in person is totally different from seeing the photos online... the textures and colors are beautiful. Too bad for my friend, I'm keeping this one for myself! It was packed very very well and arrived in perfect shape. Highly recommended!
PoojiDung
Rated 5 out of 5
Another fantastic piece of art from Mr. Mencher. Speedy shipping and well packaged. Thanks!
Rodolfo
Rated 5 out of 5
I have admired this artist work for quite some time now and always wanted to acquire one of his pieces. I was lucky enough to find this one available and the seller was extremely helpful throughout the whole transaction. Upon receiving this item I was beyond astonished at the care given to how the item was shipped. Talk about professionalism to a T!!! I looked at this piece through strong light and very strong magnification and needless to say, I was totally overwhelmed by just the sheer technique and artistry of his work! My Lord, what an amazing talent he possesses!!! I’ll be purchasing many more items from him as soon as I possibly can. This is definitely going to be A focal point in my vast art collection!!! Beyond over the moon thrilled!!!
