Solo Exhibition | Jackson Hole, WY
Altamira Fine Art is pleased to present a new show for Billy Schenck, opening July 2, 2018 at our Jackson Hole location.
If, as Jackson Pollock said, "Every good painter paints what he is," then Billy Schenck is a man of fiery juxtaposition. Consider the characters he communes with in his latest foray, a Teton travelogue: there's Edith Sargent, serenading settlers in the buff atop a horse blanket; there's Jaws, now retired in Jackson Lake yet no less rapacious; and there's the only-in-the-Tetons pony express-turned-UPS guy, scaling Mount Moran to deliver a saddle.
As the quixotic cast list suggests, a wryness pervades Schenck's new paintings: cowboys cower at the sight of wolves; cowgirls wield rifles as romance; and paradise is twofaced. By his brush, real life lacks the crisp clarity of his Pop palette; everything exists in complicated counterpoint.
Born in the Midwest, Schenck chose to plant himself and his practice in the American West. Fusing Photo-Realism and Pop Art, he works in the rich, frictional terrain of Western fictions, where cowboys riding off into the sunset are actually-curtain lifted-galloping off the satirical stage of modern heroism. To their demise or their redemption? Only Schenck knows.
Meet the Artist at the show reception Thursday, July 5th from 5:30-7:30pm.
Pre-sales available. Call (307) 739-4700 for details.