The Menk Print

Currently living in Colorado. Medium/techniques: Drawing, painting (oil, alkyd and acrylic), wood burning (pyrography), ceramics, sculpture (assemblage, found object), collage. Artist Statement: “You have a unique personal vision”, was the reaction I got from a curator at an established Soho art gallery on West Broadway in New York City years back. He added, “Unfortunately, it’s not what our client base buys here”. It made sense. The day I was there, for their walk-in artwork/portfolio reviews, on the walls there were hanging very large photo-realistic oil paintings of horses. I thanked him for his suggestions and recommendations to take my work to some places in Greenwich Village. I like it when people are viewing my work and someone says, “I’ve never seen anything like this”. It’s both bad and good. Bad in the way that it might not directly connect with a movement, genre or artist. It doesn’t look like anything else out there. It’s good in the way that it might be considered idiosyncratic, perhaps unconventional; something new that might be referencing historical aspects, or not. I’m going for permanence and durability. From ceramic and metal to pyrography (wood burning) to paintings with or without gold leaf to assemblages including, or not, found objects. Figures, animals (intact, partial or skeletal), places and situations - visualizations in an illusory context.