Bay Area Figurative, 18x18x1.5 inches oil on stretched canvas by Kenney Mencher A cropped image of a semi nude man with a muscular torso.

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This painting was made using the alla prima method.

Alla prima is an Italian phrase that means 'at first attempt'. It refers to a wet-on-wet approach whereby wet paint is applied to previous layers of still-wet paint, often in a single sitting. Over the years, the technique has been adopted and adapted by artists from Van Gogh to Velázquez.

This painting is on stretched canvas with extra thick stretcher bars so you don’t need to frame it.

The most important elements of my painting is its composition. I like to take the subject and zoom in on the most important or compelling aspects of it. To amplify the focus of the painting I then work with the composition of making the figure touch the edges of the painting and create a cropped and asymmetrical design. A composition that doesn’t place the figure bull’s eye into the center.

The second element that I find the most important is the actual thick and thin of the paint. It’s very important for me to make a painting with a lot of texture. I start by painting a kind of thin or washy layer of oil paint on the canvas and then build it up in successive layers. I then will use thicker paint to sculpt or create textures that seem to flow in the same direction as the muscles and skin using a brush. In the background I often try to trowel on the paint with plastering knives and brushes to give a varied and different texture.

Another aspect to the painting is that I work with color theory a bit. The skin tones which are based in oranges and pinks tend to project forward because there’s a rule in terms of color theory in which warm colors project forward while cool colors those containing grays and blues and greens tend to recede in depth.

The last aspect of my painting is that I also want to make the painting relevant to the Queer community. This means that I also make paintings that are specifically designed to avoid a hetero orthodoxy of the straight world in which paintings are usually relating to a more conservative world that doesn’t accept the multiplicity of human experience. I try to paint as many different types of people as possible.