marbling with acrylic paint on canvas
"I'm absorbed in the attending of things and the affection of actuality there, a moment that is absolutely arctic with all the array of textures; blight on poles, crumbling asphalt, ablaze hitting the grass. The accomplished paintings should arm-twist allegory responses of blue and warmth, bareness and calmness -- aggregate that is baby boondocks America." -- Rod Penner
Rod Penner hardly stands out in Marble Falls, Texas, a boondocks of about 5,000 residents, 40 afar northwest of Austin. "I'm somewhat of a recluse," the artisan comments. Generally speaking, Penner brand it that way. Aback Marble Falls is mainly accepted for hunting, fishing, and annoyance baiter racing, it isn't too adamantine for an artisan to break beneath the radar.
In New York, it is a altered story. Aback his exhibition of "minis" -- six inch aboveboard hyper-realist paintings -- opens at OK Harris Works of Art in New York on October 23rd, Penner will be the centermost of attention, a bearings he finds vaguely uncomfortable. Fortunately, his paintings are the absolute absorption getters. His six inch aboveboard vignettes of baby boondocks Texas command a retail amount of $8,500 each.
Rod Penner, "Clayton Dry Cleaners," Acrylic on Panel, 6 x 6 inches, 2010
Rod Penner, "Bait Shop," Acrylic on Panel, 6 x 6 inches, 2010
To put it addition way, Penner's retail amount is $34,000 per aboveboard foot. That is added than the average domiciliary assets in Marble Falls, which is $30,800. Remarkably, what sells so able-bodied in New York is absolutely the actuality that Penner has captured "melancholy and warmth, bareness and serenity," in a way that abounding of his collectors feel characterized the baby towns breadth they started out.
Penner, who jokingly refers to himself as "America's admired Mennonite Photo-realist" grew up in a tight-knit ancestors Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, uncles, brothers and cousins all formed or still assignment in the architecture trade. His parents, who noticed that he admired to draw were admiring of his developing absorption in art, and his ancestor bought him art supplies. He met his wife Debbie, a built-in Texan, in his backward teens, and they affiliated in 1986 aback Rod was 21 and briefly confused to Canada.
Building on methods he had abstruse in college, Rod began to agreement with Hyper-realist painting techniques. Not absolutely annoyed by Photo-realist paintings that he had apparent in actuality -- they looked abundant rougher than they had in art magazines -- Penner approved to booty his address further, in an alike added burdensome direction.
In 1988 the Penners confused to Richmond, Texas. Penner's aboriginal images of Texas reflect the faculty of abreast and aberancy he accomplished there. "When I aboriginal confused to Texas it was like addition planet," says Penner. It was "alien, the weather, the landscape: I didn't apperceive what to accomplish of it." Still, he was bent to acquisition his accountable amount abutting by: adjoining towns like Sealy and Clifton gave him austere, artlessly American images to assignment from.
For an artisan abundantly absorbed in arrangement and detail, the battered accompaniment of the barrio he photographed and again corrective gave him his balladry and his beheld interest. Peeling paint, absurd burghal and weeds breaking through pavement absorption Penner the way that ablaze reflected on baptize absorbed Monet. "I could never acrylic new buildings," he comments.
The somber, black accent of his aboriginal Texas paintings reflects a cardinal of things: his wife's affliction over the accident of a brother, the "Last Picture Show" vibe of baby boondocks Texas, and Penner's own abstaining appearance of life. Then, in 1991, the aforementioned year that Penner active on to appearance his assignment at OK Harris, his youngest brother died in a even crash. Two deaths -- that of his brother-in-law and his brother -- fabricated enduring impacts that Penner feels affect his apple view, and his work, to this day.
Rod Penner, "Pink House with Big Wheels," Acrylic on Canvas, 36 x 54 inches, 1992
People don't arise in his paintings, but their anchored auto trucks and their children's big auto broadcast on the advanced backyard admonish us that they are missing. With angry objectivity, Penner paints portraits of Texas baby boondocks activity after anytime assuming us a distinct animal face.
Penner's assignment belief is actual strong: it has to be, as he is the sole adherent for his wife a homemaker, and for bristles children. He is up best mornings by 4:30 for some aboriginal painting, and conceivably a walk. After breakfast he is usually aback in the flat until 5.
His adjustment of painting is methodical and systematic. Alive from photos that accept generally been adapted in photoshop, he paints a small, authentic breadth anniversary day. Aback alive on his "minis," which are six inches square, he about needs 7 to 10 days, which agency that he is painting at the amount of a few aboveboard inches anniversary day. Above paintings can booty up to four months to complete.
He rarely goes aback and corrects his antecedent day's work. Penner, in this respect, is a little like an Italian adorn artisan of the Renaissance who covered a distinct aboveboard of adhesive anniversary day, calling it his "giornata" or day's work.
The capacity for his paintings are shockingly simple: acrylic acrylic and water, activated on baby panels, or on wet-sanded canvas for above works.
Penner doesn't apperception actuality alleged a "Photo-realist" but comments that if annihilation his works are "Photo-realism in HD." People accustomed with his paintings agenda that he goes above his accountable matter, and manages to animate actual able animosity into his work.
"He is a adept technician, "says painter Leonard Koscianski, " but he is added than that. His paintings are absolutely absolutely expressive. There is a cogent aberration amid his photos and the paintings he creates from them."
Penner's dealer, Ethan Karp admires the alive aspect of Penner's images, acquainted that "They animate the eyewitness to attending at painting, mural and accountable with a faculty of cold discovery, and bear a alive moment of accuracy and abashed awareness."
Rod Penner, "Snoball," Acrylic on Panel, 6 x 6 inches, 2010
Penner's contempo art seems a bit added optimistic than it did 20 years ago. Pictures like "Snoball," which portrays a snow-cone berth with a chicken topped cone is ashen by his affable faculty of humor: it is about a "Pop" painting. The affable rivulets of baptize in advanced of the berth advance article melting, a wry comment.
It turns out that Texas is a abundant abode to accession a family, and the acropolis country mural about Marble Falls, breadth the Penners accept lived aback 2002, is absolutely absolutely beautiful. Activity at the moment is actual acceptable for the Penner family, and his online photo anthology is abounding of snaps of Arkansas river rafting, fishing trips, and football games. Austin is beneath than an hour abroad aback big burghal pleasures are in order.
Rod and Debbie Penner accept amorphous to aggregate some bashful Hudson River School paintings, and Rod is architecture a new studio. Both are luxuries they could accept hardly absurd aback they started their lives together. "We are blessed," Penner acknowledges.
When New York collectors pay big money for one of Penner's painting they are accepting a allotment of Americana. Adamantine working, and asleep on honest, Penner and his paintings booty us aback to places and ethics that somehow attending added and added adorable and alluring over time. Penner's paintings don't aloof acquaint us about bareness and melancholy. They additionally accept some things to say about grit, artlessness and endurance: American virtues.
Penner's best of appearance is additionally attractive prescient, as the art apple is advantageous added absorption to photo-realist and hyper-realist art. "There appears to currently be a growing acquaintance and acknowledgment of hyper-realist painting as a abundant and acquirable art form," says Ethan Karp.
According to Wikipedia, Marble Falls has produced three "notable" citizens: a rancher, a 2nd abode champ on "Nashville Star," and an Olympic sprinter. Addition advertisement needs to be added:
Rod Penner: A Hyper-realist artisan accepted for his agilely honest depictions of baby Texas towns.
Below: A slideshow of paintings by Rod Penner
PHOTO GALLERY
Paintings by Rod Penner
PHOTO GALLERY
Paintings by Rod Penner
Paintings by Rod Penner
Paintings by Rod Penner
Pink House with Big Wheels
Acrylic on Canvas 36 x 54 inches 1992 Image Courtesy of the artisan and <a href="http://www.okharris.com/" target="_hplink">OK Harris Works of Art</a>
