FREE SHIPPING Shipping takes 3–4 Weeks
This ships from Round Lake Beach, Illinois. A suburb outside of Chicago.
I use UPS and sometimes US Post.
This painting has a scuff over the signature in the lower left hand area of the painting. Please look at the details.
This painting is called Buoy. I made it in 2007 as part of a larger group of works where I was pushing myself technically and conceptually, photo-shoots of models, layering media, and drawing on everything I had been studying and teaching at the time.
The model is Nate, a former student of mine who ended up marrying another student and close friend named Monkey—she actually modeled for a lot of my other paintings too. Nate had this really positive, easygoing vibe. He couldn't keep a straight face for long, which ended up being the foundation for the idea behind Buoy. The title is a bit of a pun—a kind of emotional “float”—and this is a continuous narrative painting. It shows multiple views of Nate’s face in different moods and moments, all revolving around a glass of water.
The glass is a metaphor: is it half full or half empty? That question became the conceptual backbone of the piece. For Nate, the answer always seemed to be “half full.” He was one of those people who gave off this strong sense of optimism and humor. You see that in the way I’ve painted his different expressions—ranging from contemplative to laughing to slightly smug. I wanted the whole thing to feel like a conversation between versions of himself.
The composition borrows from continuous narrative in art history—like you might see in Renaissance frescoes—where multiple versions of a figure appear in one space to show different moments in time. The staging, the clothes, even the exaggerated repetition, are all grounded in that idea, but done in a domestic, modern setting.
I started the painting with a charcoal underdrawing, then built it up using thin layers of acrylic to establish the tonal structure. After that, I used oil to tighten things up and add depth to the shadows, light, and textures. You can especially see it in the glass and the fabric of the blue tablecloth—I wanted the rendering to feel almost photographic but still painted. This one’s done on a pre-stretched, high-quality linen canvas, which I splurged on at the time. It’s gallery-wrapped and doesn’t need a frame to hang.
I was consciously referencing painters like Caravaggio—especially his Boy Bitten by a Lizard—and Velázquez’s Water Carrier of Seville, where a transparent vessel is painted as a kind of technical flex. I was definitely trying to prove something here: that I had the chops to paint something tight, complex, and meaningful. But it also has humor and warmth.
Like my other pieces from this period, this is part of my Fresh Finds collection. I’ve been going through my archive and pulling out works that collectors haven’t seen in years. These are the paintings that have stayed with me, that represent a turning point or a particular kind of risk or achievement in my career. I'm finally letting them go because I want these stories and paintings to live in other people’s spaces—not just in storage. This one feels especially personal and emblematic of what I was trying to do as a teacher, painter, and thinker.
Details
Title: Buoy
Artist: Kenney Mencher
Year: 2007
Medium: Oil over acrylic on gallery-wrapped linen canvas
Size: 36 x 48 inches
Style: Narrative realism with conceptual elements
Condition: Excellent
Frame: Unframed, gallery-wrapped edges (ready to hang)
Technique: Charcoal underdrawing, acrylic block-in, layered oil painting
Subject: Seated man with repeated facial expressions around a half-full glass of water
FREE SHIPPING Shipping takes 3–4 Weeks
This ships from Round Lake Beach, Illinois. A suburb outside of Chicago.
I use UPS and sometimes US Post.
This painting has a scuff over the signature in the lower left hand area of the painting. Please look at the details.
This painting is called Buoy. I made it in 2007 as part of a larger group of works where I was pushing myself technically and conceptually, photo-shoots of models, layering media, and drawing on everything I had been studying and teaching at the time.
The model is Nate, a former student of mine who ended up marrying another student and close friend named Monkey—she actually modeled for a lot of my other paintings too. Nate had this really positive, easygoing vibe. He couldn't keep a straight face for long, which ended up being the foundation for the idea behind Buoy. The title is a bit of a pun—a kind of emotional “float”—and this is a continuous narrative painting. It shows multiple views of Nate’s face in different moods and moments, all revolving around a glass of water.
The glass is a metaphor: is it half full or half empty? That question became the conceptual backbone of the piece. For Nate, the answer always seemed to be “half full.” He was one of those people who gave off this strong sense of optimism and humor. You see that in the way I’ve painted his different expressions—ranging from contemplative to laughing to slightly smug. I wanted the whole thing to feel like a conversation between versions of himself.
The composition borrows from continuous narrative in art history—like you might see in Renaissance frescoes—where multiple versions of a figure appear in one space to show different moments in time. The staging, the clothes, even the exaggerated repetition, are all grounded in that idea, but done in a domestic, modern setting.
I started the painting with a charcoal underdrawing, then built it up using thin layers of acrylic to establish the tonal structure. After that, I used oil to tighten things up and add depth to the shadows, light, and textures. You can especially see it in the glass and the fabric of the blue tablecloth—I wanted the rendering to feel almost photographic but still painted. This one’s done on a pre-stretched, high-quality linen canvas, which I splurged on at the time. It’s gallery-wrapped and doesn’t need a frame to hang.
I was consciously referencing painters like Caravaggio—especially his Boy Bitten by a Lizard—and Velázquez’s Water Carrier of Seville, where a transparent vessel is painted as a kind of technical flex. I was definitely trying to prove something here: that I had the chops to paint something tight, complex, and meaningful. But it also has humor and warmth.
Like my other pieces from this period, this is part of my Fresh Finds collection. I’ve been going through my archive and pulling out works that collectors haven’t seen in years. These are the paintings that have stayed with me, that represent a turning point or a particular kind of risk or achievement in my career. I'm finally letting them go because I want these stories and paintings to live in other people’s spaces—not just in storage. This one feels especially personal and emblematic of what I was trying to do as a teacher, painter, and thinker.
Details
Title: Buoy
Artist: Kenney Mencher
Year: 2007
Medium: Oil over acrylic on gallery-wrapped linen canvas
Size: 36 x 48 inches
Style: Narrative realism with conceptual elements
Condition: Excellent
Frame: Unframed, gallery-wrapped edges (ready to hang)
Technique: Charcoal underdrawing, acrylic block-in, layered oil painting
Subject: Seated man with repeated facial expressions around a half-full glass of water
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