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 is called Kill Da Wabbit—a direct nod to the Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd opera parody that inspired part of its composition and mood. It’s one of the largest and wildest paintings I’ve ever done, clocking in at 48 x 60 inches, and it has a big personal backstory tied to my Renovated Reputations project. During one of those shows, I didn’t have a photo booth available, so I set up a red velvet backdrop and a tripod camera. I invited guests to pose in vintage costumes I had provided, including Viking helmets and a Roman-style battle helmet. People really got into it—shouting lines from Gladiator, playing around in character, and bringing a ton of energy.
Later, when I looked at the photos, I realized they had the intensity of an opera chorus. The characters were bold and over the top, almost like they were in a Wagnerian battle scene. That inspired this composition—a chorus of horned helmets and raised hands, yelling and rallying like they were on stage or heading into a mythic war. I originally even painted Bugs Bunny in the lower corner, but it felt too pop-culture, too much like a gimmick, so I painted over it and added the raven instead. That brought the mood back into something more serious, even referencing Norse mythology and the Ring Cycle operas, where ravens symbolize battle, fate, and death.
I started the piece with charcoal sketches of each character—using vine charcoal so I could erase and shift things around until I found the right composition. Once I had it nailed down, I blocked in the painting with Rustoleum enamel-based oil paints. I’d been watching Vincent Desiderio talk about using experimental materials and wanted to try working with a combination of smooth alla prima passages and heavy, textural impasto. You can see that contrast across the surface—some areas are super drippy and loose, while others are built up thickly with bold brushstrokes.
This painting holds a lot of personal weight. I started it in my Palo Alto studio, then moved it halfway across the country to Round Lake Beach, Illinois. The photo of me standing in front of it was taken on a hot, sticky day—sweaty and exhausted—but I wanted to show the scale of it for collectors. It’s got the DNA of a community art event, my teaching life, my love of cinema and classic painting, and my relocation across states. It's a weird, theatrical, funny, mythic piece that really sums up a lot of what I care about in painting—narrative, drama, humor, and people.
It’s now part of my Fresh Finds project, where I’m digging into my archive to release some of my best, most personal work. These paintings have stayed with me because they represent key moments in my career and life, and now I want them to live with collectors who connect with the stories.
Details
Title: Kill Da Wabbit
Artist: Kenney Mencher
Year: 2012
Medium: Oil and enamel on gallery-stretched canvas
Size: 48 x 60 inches
Style: Expressionistic narrative realism with mythological and operatic elements
Condition: Excellent
Frame: Unframed, gallery-wrapped edges (ready to hang)
Technique: Charcoal underdrawing, layered alla prima and impasto brushwork, use of Rustoleum enamel oil
Subject: A mythic chorus of Viking/warrior figures, with a raven, drawn from live portraits taken at an art reception
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 is called Kill Da Wabbit—a direct nod to the Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd opera parody that inspired part of its composition and mood. It’s one of the largest and wildest paintings I’ve ever done, clocking in at 48 x 60 inches, and it has a big personal backstory tied to my Renovated Reputations project. During one of those shows, I didn’t have a photo booth available, so I set up a red velvet backdrop and a tripod camera. I invited guests to pose in vintage costumes I had provided, including Viking helmets and a Roman-style battle helmet. People really got into it—shouting lines from Gladiator, playing around in character, and bringing a ton of energy.
Later, when I looked at the photos, I realized they had the intensity of an opera chorus. The characters were bold and over the top, almost like they were in a Wagnerian battle scene. That inspired this composition—a chorus of horned helmets and raised hands, yelling and rallying like they were on stage or heading into a mythic war. I originally even painted Bugs Bunny in the lower corner, but it felt too pop-culture, too much like a gimmick, so I painted over it and added the raven instead. That brought the mood back into something more serious, even referencing Norse mythology and the Ring Cycle operas, where ravens symbolize battle, fate, and death.
I started the piece with charcoal sketches of each character—using vine charcoal so I could erase and shift things around until I found the right composition. Once I had it nailed down, I blocked in the painting with Rustoleum enamel-based oil paints. I’d been watching Vincent Desiderio talk about using experimental materials and wanted to try working with a combination of smooth alla prima passages and heavy, textural impasto. You can see that contrast across the surface—some areas are super drippy and loose, while others are built up thickly with bold brushstrokes.
This painting holds a lot of personal weight. I started it in my Palo Alto studio, then moved it halfway across the country to Round Lake Beach, Illinois. The photo of me standing in front of it was taken on a hot, sticky day—sweaty and exhausted—but I wanted to show the scale of it for collectors. It’s got the DNA of a community art event, my teaching life, my love of cinema and classic painting, and my relocation across states. It's a weird, theatrical, funny, mythic piece that really sums up a lot of what I care about in painting—narrative, drama, humor, and people.
It’s now part of my Fresh Finds project, where I’m digging into my archive to release some of my best, most personal work. These paintings have stayed with me because they represent key moments in my career and life, and now I want them to live with collectors who connect with the stories.
Details
Title: Kill Da Wabbit
Artist: Kenney Mencher
Year: 2012
Medium: Oil and enamel on gallery-stretched canvas
Size: 48 x 60 inches
Style: Expressionistic narrative realism with mythological and operatic elements
Condition: Excellent
Frame: Unframed, gallery-wrapped edges (ready to hang)
Technique: Charcoal underdrawing, layered alla prima and impasto brushwork, use of Rustoleum enamel oil
Subject: A mythic chorus of Viking/warrior figures, with a raven, drawn from live portraits taken at an art reception
