Could you tell us about your history as an artist?

It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do ever since I could hold a crayon.  As a small child, probably starting at the age of six or so, I remember drawing fired off every pleasurable sensation in my body and brain I could think of.  My parents had a bunch of art books and even an old Gardner’s “Art Through the Ages Textbook” from the 50s when they were in college and I could get enough of the pictures.  They bought me “How To” books on art and my grandparents also would buy me art supplies.  When I was eight years old I learned how to draw profiles by copying a drawing of Hans Christian Anderson from a Scholastic book. I drew profiles obsessively in the dirt with a stick outside my school.  That same year, I painted a series of portraits of the presidents with model paints.  Painting people and especially faces is one of the most pleasurable things I’ve ever set my mind to.

Ohio 1977, in junior high school I had a teacher, Mr. Mallen, who stayed after school for two hours and taught me the fundamentals of drawing features.  I’m still friends with his son on Facebook.  This was an information explosion for me!  I expanded on this and eventually moved back to the Bronx with my father’s new family where I tested into the magnate school the High School of Art and Design.  That’s where I got to the next level and met a teacher Irwin Greenberg “Greeny” who I think about every day.

Greenberg conducted an extra open studio time before school began that he called "The Old Hat Painting Club." We would get to school about two or three hours early and one of us would model for the rest of the students who would begin painting a wet into wet or "ala prima" painting of either the full figure, head, and shoulders, or just the face of a single person. We would all dig into our pockets and contribute a quarter or $.50 to pay the model. This was way back in 1979 so that could amount to going out for sandwich or a meal.

Greenberg taught us a quick 19th-century style that is often referred to as wet into wet or sometimes ala prima. What this means is we with telling the canvas with some turpentine and a little bit of burnt sienna paint and then start drawing into this soupy mix with the darker brown, usually burnt umber, and draw with the brush. We would immediately start to model the shading or value structure as we painted and we would sometimes wipe out the lighter areas to be able to see the value structure or structure of light and shadow as it moved across the figure or face. You must work very quickly and sometimes you only had two or three two-hour sessions to complete the painting and our teachers were so skillful that they were able to make a completed portrait, in the style of John Singer Sargent, sometimes in as little as an hour. It was a kind of magic and we strove to learn how to do that. Now at the ripe old age of 57 I'm able to paint beautiful young people and sometimes older handsome men in anywhere between 2 to 5 hours. In the style of my teachers.

How did you specifically become an “erotic” artist?

There’s an excitement in being transgressive and depicting or illustrating things that either excite or annoy other people.  Especially when it comes to sex and power.  There are some fancy theories about this proposed by author Michel Foucault in his “History of Sexuality.”  I was introduced to this text and the ideas in it in graduate school but I think it explains rather than created the impulse for me to create sexually or erotically charged images. To put it bluntly, I’ve always been excited by depicting taboo things such as sex, sexual power, and sexual identity. 

I started depicting taboo or difficult subjects in high school and have continued to do so throughout my entire career.  For my graduate thesis exhibit my show consisted of a series of loosely expressionistically painted male figures having sex in the style of the Bay Area figurative painters, Diebenkorn and Bischoff while every other painting in the exhibit was a series of fairly tightly painted still lifes of fruits and vegetables against drapery.  I was thinking memento mori my graduate advisors didn’t know what to make of it.  This was at the University of Cincinnati a couple of years after the Mapplethorpe exhibit.  I remember one of the comments left in the guest book was something like, “This isn’t a retrospective, make up your mind about what you’re going to paint.”

Later, I made similar transgressive or erotically charged images while I was working with a gallery called “Hang” in San Francisco.  Surprisingly enough, “Hang” wasn’t that interested in the edgy imagery and even stopped representing me because they were offended by what I was painting.  This despite a great sales record. 

See this for the articles and reviews about my work that describe what happened,

http://kenney-mencher.com/catalog/article.htm

For example, when I presented this painting called “Los Angeles” oil on canvas 36x36 inches to Hang, they immediately clutched their pearls and refused to take the painting.  When I left the gallery and had a solo show at Klaudia Marr Gallery in Santa Fe it sold immediately.  So did the rest of the paintings that were too challenging.

After all the press I got about my shows in the Sacramento Bee and the Oakland Tribune, I was picked up by another gallery I Sacramento called the Elliott Fouts Gallery but even that gallery, but even Fouts had problems with anything homoerotic or gay in subject matter.  Now I mainly represent myself, however, I still get marginalized by the galleries who have asked to show my work.  For example, Bearworld just ran a feature about my work where I describe how this is still going on.

https://bearworldmag.com/galleries-gay-male-art-bear-bodies/

However, he still suffered from a bit of censorship, he’s also had his work removed from several galleries and most recently been told that his work is “too gay” for a gallery in Palm Springs.  The director explained that they would take some of the paintings however, the titles were also “too gay” and would have to be sanitized.  By the way, the gallery director is gay. 

What is it about the male form that inspires your work?

Although I have empathy for all bodies a sort of “I Sing the Body Electric,” I don’t mean to get too esoteric, I relate to the male body in a way that I cannot to the female body, politically, historically, and psychologically. 

The easy answer is comic books and classical art.  The male body is the heroic powerful body.  Male beauty is not decided by how smoothly airbrushed out and homogenized it is the way that womens’ bodies have been portrayed.  Male bodies are allowed to have character and are still considered beautiful.

I like to paint men who I have either looked like, wanted to look like, or look like now.  In some ways, every male I paint is a type of self portrait of an aspect of how I feel or have felt.  I understand the anatomy of the male body, the fat and the muscle, the hard and the soft and so I am inspired to get this down in paint or draw it. 

I mainly paint men because it helps me to accept and understand who I am and why I’m a vibrant sexual and powerful creature.  I’ve always painted men, especially homoerotic portraits of men, but galleries simply would not show the work.  When the availability of an online market became available, I was able to make the leap and paint the subject that inspires me the most without a gallery arbitrarily deciding what they would show.

What makes a “beautiful” man?

That’s such a reductive question!  I think that I find a man beautiful if he has something distinctive about his appearance and this ranges from body types to facial types and is for me literally on a case by case basis.  I prefer larger, hairier men.  I guess either muscle bears or soft fat bears.  I like it when a man has a big nose and distinctive features.  There is usually one particular aspect of a male figure that can dominate for me whether or not they are beautiful, for example, if a man has a beautifully shaped skull, or nose, cheekbones, large arms, or big yummy tummy.

Who are some real life models/performers you have or would be interested in painting? Why?

I’ve painted several influencers and people who are celebrated like Gainerbull https://twitter.com/gainerbull and ready_w_red https://www.instagram.com/ready_w_red/

I was sitting in the movie theater watching the first Henry Cavill Superman movie when his face came on the screen.  I gasped and leaned over to my wife and said, “He is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”  I felt the same way when I was Daniel Craig the first time.  However, I’m not really sure if I would want to paint them consistently.  My eye wanders a lot!  I’m not really interested in one kind of male type to paint, I guess I’m polygamous when it comes to models.  There are a couple of bulls that I’ve come across in some porn that I’ve done screen grabs of and those paintings have sold immediately and they are the types of guys I like to paint more often although I don’t know their names.

If it’s not too personal, you are married to a woman, how does your attraction to the male form tie into this?

 Well, I know my wife is attracted to the same men I like to paint.  She is a really open minded person who like me, is kind of “gender queer.”  Neither one of us has a problem acknowledging that human sexuality is on a spectrum and one doesn’t need to limit yourself in terms of attractions.  She gets asked about it all the time and people ask her if she has a problem with what I paint, she often likes to respond, “I wish that when I got home from work Kenney had one of his delicious models sitting on the couch for me to stare at.”  Unfortunately, I work from photos.  She does like to look over my shoulder when I’m downloading reference materials from the web.

How can one view and purchase your art?

I sell mainly on the web, galleries are a tough sell!  I post stuff regularly on Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr, often collectors get in touch with me directly.  I also have most of my available stuff on the following sites and platforms:

 ·       https://www.kenney-mencher.net/

·       http://www.kenney-mencher.com/

·       http://www.etsy.com/shop/kmencher

·       https://www.instagram.com/kenneymencher/

·       https://www.facebook.com/Kenney.Mencher

·       http://www.youtube.com/user/kmencher

 What are your plans with your artwork in the future?

 I’ve started working on paintings with more than one figure.  I like to make smaller version to see how it will go and then make a more monumental one. These multiple figure paintings have been popular and I feel like it’s somehow my chance to grow and improve my art into a more conceptual way.  Although most of my work is about the beauty of the male figure painted as skillfully as I can, the anatomy, shading and textural qualities of the paint, I feel like I’m growing in terms of the subject matter by including more narrative or story telling elements in my art.  These new paintings are meant to be a bit of a “thematic apperception test” called by shrinks the TAT.  When I was in college, I learned about a psychological technique developed by American psychologist Murray at Harvard University during the 1930s. The idea for the TAT emerged from a question asked by one of Murray's undergraduate students who reported that when her son was ill, he spent the day making up stories about images in magazines and she asked Murray if pictures could be employed in a clinical setting to explore the underlying dynamics of personality.  I thought this would be a great point of departure for people looking at art.

EDUCATION     

1993-1995  University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH  MFA Painting 

1991-1994 University  of California, Davis, CA  MA Art History -Thesis  Title:  "Vampires, the Audiences  they Consume." 

1988-1991 City University  of New York, Bronx, NY  Magna Cum Laude; BA  Art History 

1985-1986 University  of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH  & Spring 1988 

1981-1985 Art Students'  League, Manhattan, NY 

1978-1982 Art &  Design High School, Manhattan, NY

EMPLOYMENT     

2022-Present Adjunct Instructor Art History and Studio Art, De Anza College, Cupertino, California

2019-2023 Instructor Art History, West Valley College, Saratoga, California

1999-2016  Professor of Art & Art History, Ohlone College, Fremont, California 

1998-1999 Instructor  of Art History & Western Civilization,  San Francisco University  High School 

1996-1998 Assistant  Professor of Art & Art History, Texas A&M University, Laredo,  TX 

1995-1996 Curator  of Visual Resources, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 

1995-1996 Adjunct  Instructor, University of Chicago, IL 

EXHIBITIONS: Solo and  Two Person 

2022 Lone Star Saloon, San Francisco, CA  It's All About the Bears (Solo)

2012  Ohlone College, Fremont CA  Renovated  Reputations: Paintings, Installation  and Mixed Media by Kenney Mencher  with publication edited by the artist.  (Solo) 

2012  Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento CA  Renovated  Reputations: Paintings, Installation  and Mixed Media by Kenney Mencher  with publication edited by the artist.  (Solo) 

2012  Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA  Renovated  Reputations: Paintings, Installation  and Mixed Media by Kenney Mencher  with publication edited by the artist.  (Solo) 

2012  Art Museum of Los Gatos, Los Gatos CA   Renovated  Reputations: Paintings, Installation  and Mixed Media by Kenney Mencher  with publication edited by the artist.  (Solo) 

2011  ArtHaus Gallery, San Francisco, CA   Renovated  Reputations: Paintings, Installation  and Mixed Media by Kenney Mencher  with publication edited by the artist.  (Solo) 

2009  ArtHaus Gallery, San Francisco, CA   In  Black and White: Monochromatic Paintings by Kenney Mencher and Caroline  Meyer 

2009  Dahlia Woods Gallery, Dallas, Texas  Cool  Shades, Kenney Mencher and Linda Sheets 

2008  Art Museum of Los Gatos, California Sex, Politics and Misogyny Peter Langenbach  and Kenney Mencher 

2008  Sequential Art Gallery, Portland, Oregon  Cads  and Coquettes  (Solo) 

2008  Varnish Fine Art, San Francisco, California  Lovers  and Liars  (Solo) 

2007  Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, CA  Faces  and Farces  (Solo) 

2007  Dahlia Woods Gallery, Dallas, Texas  The  Return of the Maltese Falcon  (Solo) 

2007  Gallery 2611, Redwood City, California  Clichés  and Characters  (Solo) 

2006  Klaudia Marr Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico  Kenney  Mencher: Recent Work  (Solo) 

2006  Elliott Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, CA  Apperceptions  and Allegories  (Solo) 

2006  Norton Studio Gallery, Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, CA  Being  There  (Solo) 

2006  Esteban  Sabar Gallery, Oakland, CA  Similes and Sayings  (Solo Show) 

2006  Boehm Gallery,  Palomar College, San Marcos, CA  Mixed Metaphors  (Solo Show) 

2005  Dig Fine  Art, Providence, RI  Clichés  & Proverbs  (Solo Show) 

2005 Elliott Fouts  Gallery, Sacramento, CA  Hamlettes on Wry  (Solo Show) 

2005 Mountain View  Center for the Performing Arts, Mountain View, CA  (Solo Show) 

2004 Louie-Meager Art  Gallery, Gary Soren Smith Center, Ohlone College, CA  Dress Code  (Solo Show) 

2004  STRS Gallery,  Sacramento, CA 

2002  Louie Art  Gallery, Ohlone College,  Fremont, CA  Too Knew: Kathryn  Frank and Kenney Mencher 

2001  Craighead-Green,  Dallas, TX  Kenney Mencher  and Connie Connally 

1997 Laredo Community  College, Laredo, TX  Art Department Teaching  Gallery  Relationships  (Solo Show) 

1997 Laredo Center  for the Arts, Laredo, TX  Noir Images  (Solo Show) 

1994 Brody Gallery,  University of Cincinnati, OH  Androgynous Paintings  of V.  (Solo Show) 

1993 Garden Gallery,  Sacramento, CA  California Landscapes  (Solo Show)

EXHIBITIONS:  GROUP 

2011  ArtHaus Gallery, San Francisco, CA   The  Men's Room 

2010 Elliott Fouts  Gallery, Sacramento, CA   Go Figure 

2010 ArtHaus Gallery,  San Francisco, California,   Resurgence 

2008 ArtHaus Gallery,  San Francisco,   California Figurative  Works by Gallery and Guest Artists 

2007 Klaudia Marr,  Santa Fe, NM 14th   14th Annual Realism  Invitational 2007 

2006 Klaudia Marr,  Santa Fe, NM  13th Annual  Realism Invitational 

2006  Triton Art  Museum, Santa Clara, CA  Beyond the Likeness:  Self Portraits by California Artists 

2006 Isadore  Gallery, Lancaster, PA  The  Go Figure Show: Artistic Interpretation of Figure Elements 

2005 Klaudia Marr,  Santa Fe, NM   12th Annual  Realism Invitational 

2005  Blue Line  Gallery, Atlanta, GA   Grand Opening  Group Show 

2004 Craighead-Green,  Dallas, TX 

2004  Red Ink  Studio, San Jose, CA 

2003 Hang Gallery Palo  Alto, CA  One More Thing  Before I Go 

2003 Hang Gallery San  Francisco, CA  Can't Sleep 

2002  Hang Gallery  San Francisco, CA  Small Works 

2002 The Canvas Gallery,  San Francisco, CA  The View from Here:  Anna Conti, Joel Tarbox and Kenney Mencher 

2002 Period Gallery,  Omaha, NE  Painting 

2002 Period Gallery,  Omaha, NE  Faces  2001 Craighead-Green  Gallery, Dallas TX  Connie Connaly  and Kenney Mencher 

2001 Hang Gallery,  San Francisco, CA  The Figurative  Show 

2000 Bryant Gallery,  Jackson, MI  Works on Consignment 

2000 Jenkins-Johnson  Gallery, San Francisco, CA  Small Works 

2000 Hanson Gallery,  Knoxsville, TN  Faces and Figures 

1999 Jenkins-Johnson  Gallery, San Francisco, CA  First Annual Realism  Invitational 

1999 Craighead/Green  Gallery, Dallas TX  Consignment Works 

1999 Jenkins-Johnson  Gallery, San Francisco, CA  Anniversary Group  Exhibition 

1998 Jenkins-Johnson  Gallery, San Francisco, CA  Small Works 

1998 Jenkins-Johnson  Gallery, San Francisco, CA  Nancy Switzer,  Milt Kobayashi, and Kenney Mencher 

1998 Craighead/Green  Gallery, Dallas TX  Consignment Works 

1998 Craighead/Green  Gallery, Dallas TX  Michael Magovoro  and Kenney Mencher 

1998 Primary Object  Gallery, San Antonio, TX 

1996 Martin Rathburn  Gallery, San Antonio, TX  Ron Hoover, Katie  Pell and Kenney Mencher 

1995 Tangeman Center  Gallery, University of Cincinnati, OH  Thesis Exhibit 

1994 Mason Fine Art  Gallery, Mason, OH  Jan Brown Checco,  Ken Landon Buck,  Irwin Greenburg,  and Kenney Mencher 

1994 KZF Gallery, Cincinnati,  OH  Manmade and Natural  Landscapes 

1994 Zephyr Gallery,  Louisville, KY  Consignment Artists  Show 

1994 Semantics Gallery,  Cincinnati, OH  Burrell, Simmons,  & Mencher 

1994 840 Gallery, University  of Cincinnati, OH  The Innocent Eye  Test 

1993 Davis Art Center,  Davis, CA 

1992 Images Gallery,  San Francisco, CA 

1990 The National Arts  Club, Manhattan, NY  Fifteenth Annual Student  Exhibition  Honorable Mention 

1986 Arts Consortium  Gallery, Cincinnati, OH  Monumental Still  Life Drawings 

1986 Chidlaw Gallery,  Art Academy, Cincinnati, OH  Show in honor of scholarship  recipients

LECTURES &  PAPERS DELIVERED     

2006  Pacific Art League, Palo Alto, CA  The  Figurative Tradition and Realism 

2003 Hang Gallery San  Francisco, CA  Can't Sleep 

2002 Hang Gallery  Painting 

1999 Guest Lecturer,  Sacred Heart High School  St. Peter's Cathedral 

1999 Guest Lecturer,  Sacred Heart High School  Constantine and Early  Christianity 

1998 Guest Lecturer,  Sacred Heart High School  Monasticism/Scholasticism/Catholicism 

1997 Laredo Rotary  Pompeii as an Artifact  of Civic Pride 

1996 Guest Lecturer,  Classics Week, Texas A&M University,  "A Brief Tour of the  Acropolis" 

1993 Guest lecturer,  University of California, Davis, CA  "Mannerism and Architecture" 

1992 Guest lecturer,  University of California, Davis, CA  "Art as Ideology"

AWARDS     

1993-1995  Full Tuition Scholarship, University of Cincinnati OH 

1991 Departmental Honors:Art,  Lehman College, Bronx, NY 

1991 Geldwerth Scholarship,  Lehman College, Bronx, NY 

1990 Jacob Hammer Memorial  Award in Playwriting 

English Dept. Lehman  College, Bronx, NY 

1990 Raymond J. Sontag  Prize History Dept. Lehman College, Bronx, NY 

1986 Tuition Scholarship,  Cincinnati Art Academy, OH

THINGS IN PRINT 

"Renovated Reputations Paintings and Fiction  Painted and edited by Kenney Mencher" by Joshua Rose,  American Art  Collector February 2012 

Kenney  Mencher Renovates Reputations at the Art Museum of Los Gatos  KQED By Ben Marks | Dec 12, 2011   

Shotgun Review Kenney  Mencher and Carolyn Meyer: in BLACK and WHITE by Mary Anne Kluth Arthaus  (Editor's  Note: This review was originally intended for publication in Artweek.)  July 18, 2009

In  BLACK and WHITE Submitted by bbamsey on May 8, 2009

Bear Flavored, Aki Choklat and Christian Trippe, (Veenman  Publishers: London) 2007   

“Brushing Up: A Handle on Glass" Kenney Mencher,   The Artist Magazine, November 2007 

“Return of the Maltese Falcon" Envy Magazine, September  2007 

“Variations on a Theme" Kenney Mencher,  The Artist  Magazine, June 2007     

Telling  Tales on Canvas Rebecca Wallace, Palo Alto Weekly January 26, 2007 

Controversy  is in the eye of the beholder in Boehm exhibit, By: Sandra Kraisireideja,  North  County Times 2006 

"The  Eyes of the Beholder" Jack Fischer, San Jose Mercury, 2006 

"All  Too Real" By Kelly Vance, East Bay Express, 2006 

"Art  scene by Bill Van Siclen: Works that deal with doubt, mystery and ambiguity"   by Bill Van Siclen, Providence Journal - Providence, RI, USA 01:00  AM EDT on Thursday, September 8, 2005 

"His  art's too racy for walls at CalSTRS"  By David Barton Sacramento  BeeFriday, April 16, 2004 

Letter  to the Editor in Response to Sac Bee Article 2004 

"Teachers'  group removes professor's suggestive art"  by Monique Beeler,  Oakland  Tribune also published in the Fremont Argus  Friday April 23, 2004 

"Center for the Arts  exhibits 'Relationships'"  Laredo Morning Times 29 May 1997, 1C. 

"Kenney Mencher's 'Noir  Images' exhibit at LCC" Laredo Morning Times 6 April 1997, 1C. 

"A&M International  art Professor's 'Noir Images' opens April 11 at LCC" LareDOS April  1997: 34. 

"A&M International  University art professor in SA gallery show,"  LareDOS December 1996:  14. 

Dan R. Goddard, "Painters  Figure out unique ways to portray people,"  San Antonio Express News  20 November 1996: 

"University art professor  in SA gallery show," Laredo Morning Times 24 November 1996, sec.  Local: 23A. 

Lucy Gail Llenado,  "EYE to EYE, Artist:Kenney Mencher,"  Everybody's News 1 September  1994: 5.

ILLUSTRATIONS  Jonathan Woods, Bad Juju and other Tales of Madness  and Mayhem, (New Pulp Press) 2010 Cover Design and Illustration 

Dave Zeltserman,  21 Tales from the Modern Master  of Noir, (New Pulp Press) 2010 Cover Design and Illustration   

Gil Brewer, Flight to Darkness, (New Pulp Press) 2010  Cover Design and Illustration 

Hannah Gerber, How to Grow Up and other Poems, (Outskirts  Press, Denver CO) 2007 Cover Illustration