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LATEST GALLERIES

Some Available Paintings

BIOGRAPHY

A painterly Peter Sellers, Mencher's works are like the film "Being There." Mencher likes to watch.

Citing the almost cliché conventions presented by literature, television, film, and stage drama, Mencher’s often sardonic objective is to present a figurative composition that forces viewers to create their own interpretation of the narrative. By combining calligraphic gestural brushstrokes with passages of tight traditional glazing techniques, Mencher's works explores the thread of human connection that is woven into our experiences. Collaged from posed photographs and pop-culture, Mencher's paintings are frozen moments in a play. Sometimes these moments are outrageous or surreal and the figures in his paintings are character actors caught up in the action.
Kelley Vance’s review of Mencher’s work describes the Bay Area artist’s work as “a whiff of Edward Hopper, a blast of Mickey Spillane, a rrowf of David Lynch.” One can see a world of humor and double entendre in his paintings in which “low rent gigolos” steal cash, beautiful blonde bombshells offer forbidden apples, and psychoanalyze characters straight out of Edward Hopper’s world. Even so, one is still left with a riddle that San Jose Mercury’s art reviewer Jack Fischer describes as working by implication. “Something is happening in the picture that gives you the willies, but it can be hard to decide whether the cause, dear Brutus, lies in Mencher's depiction or in what you've brought to the party yourself.”

Some paintings feature a few riddles that may not be “willy” inducing but are certainly provocative. Most notably Mencher is exhibiting a series of portraits in which multiple copies of the same character gaze at, question, and muse over half glasses of water. The cliché seems to be of the “is it half empty or half full variety” but the over all these pictures’ contents seem to challenge the viewer into wanting to know the models’ thoughts and not so much what the answer is.
Originally from New York, NY, Kenney Mencher earned a BA and MA in Art History from City University of New York and University of California, Davis, respectively, following which he went on to obtain a MFA in painting from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. He has taught at a number of institutions including the University of Chicago and Texas A&M University, and now teaches at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. He is the author of a text book Liaisons: Readings in Art, Literature and Philosophy. His exposure via solo and group exhibitions is extensive nationwide.

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