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ARTIST STATEMENT

A Thank you

Many people have been influential to me throughout my career, and I would like express my heartfelt thanks to each and everyone. Where do I begin? My teachers throughout my educational years in Elementary and High School must have seen a spark some place and they were very encouraging to me in my formative years. The instructors that I worked under at Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, gave me the formal and Classical art education that is very hard to come by in today’s standards. I have had many friends, artists and others that have made and continue to make great influences on me throughout my life.

Family has always been there for me in good times and difficult times. My Brother and two Sisters are always interested in what I was doing and encourage my efforts. My wife, Debbie and daughter, Dana have given and continue to give me the support and encouragement that keeps my brush to the canvas. They have been very patient in putting up with the Artist/Husband instead of Husband/Artist and the Artist/Father in stead of what should have been the Father/Artist.

So many people have given me so much but the two people that gave me the most were my two parents, Harold and Mildred Backhaus. Bless their hearts, they have both since pasted on. They were two people that loved life and shared their love of life with their four children. Farmers by trade they raised their family in a small community in Wisconsin.

My first introduction to anything to do with art came from observing my Father sketching on a piece of scrape paper at the dinner table. He had no formal art training, but had a natural eye for observing and mimicking what he saw with pencil on paper. As a youngster hardly big enough to see over the edge of the table, I grasped tight with my hands and stood on my tip toes to see as close as I could, I was as captivated as if I was witnessing Creation itself.

I believe at that point I knew what I wanted to do with any spare time I had, and at that age a little kid has a lot of spare time. I drew, drew and drew some more and when I had run out of pencils and paper my parents found more. Christmas and Birthdays were celebrated with many gifts in the art category for little Kenn. The encouragement and dedication to hard work was embedded in their children at a young age. It did not necessarily embed in me at a young age. If I wasn’t drawing I was off exploring the great outdoors. At times I was late for chores and would get scolded for being late which was par for the course.

Those early years of exploration gave me the wanderlust spirit that I have today. I have a nomadic force that fits the perfect style for the outdoor painter. Today I love both my time at home in the studio and the time I have to explore our wonderful country. My days of education have not ended, today experience is the best teacher for me. I continue to learn every day. The day the learning stops will be the day I stop.

My gratitude goes out to many, I have been blessed so many times over.

Artist Statement

Becoming a Member of an ever-growing family of representational painters across this country, I am dedicated exclusively to explore to the fullest the potential of our surrounding landscape. My goal is to make the experience of painting a singular one with the viewer. I believe that a painting is not just an illusion in two dimension, but also that of a moment in life, captured on canvas. Painting is a language varying in mood and atmosphere that reflects the diversities of life itself. I enjoy the challenges of various subject matters, so my approach to the painting process is to involve the viewer with those subjects as much as possible, not only through those choices, but also through how I elect to portray those subjects. Allowing the viewer to interpret and finish parts of the painting is more interesting than if the painting is totally spelled out for them. I want the viewer to see the use of the medium, the end of that brush stroke, the spontaneity, the assuredness of the artist. If I can give the viewer a sense of the atmosphere, a sense of light in the scene, maybe just to open their eyes to the simple beauty around us, then I feel I have accomplished my goals. If you agree with this ideal, then come take pleasure with those artist’s efforts and share a common passion, the passion of Plein Air Painting.

Theme and Subject Matter

The scene itself probably dictates the theme of my paintings. When I am walking or driving down a road in search of a subject to paint, if something makes me take a second look there is probably a good chance that I will stop and investigate it thoroughly. It may be the strong light and shadow patterns or the abstract quality of the shapes, some color interest, many things will pull at my attention. Once I find a suitable subject I will investigate it from all angles to find the optimum location to paint, also I find the statement in the scene, what is it that made me stop and take that second look. I always have a statement in my paintings. What I mean by that is that I may find something in the scene to put the focus on and play everything off that. That may require me to edit objects out of the scene or make some of the other elements to be secondary to the main focal point.

Technique

My approach or technique to the painting process is first to trust my eyes and not my mind. Through years of media corruption; TV, print media, advertisements, etc. our minds want to take over and paint the scene with some of those bright gaudy colors that we have become use to seeing in the media. Putting much too much detail in the scene (painting like a camera would see) is a common problem that, many artist struggle with. We as humans, we do not see like a camera, we will focus on one area of the scene, and that area should have the detail and everything else should become subordinate to that. Again, if I go into this process with the thought of trusting my eyes, I will have an honest day of painting.

The painting technique is one that somewhat changes. In general, I will tone the canvas with a color that is conducive to the scene. I then proceed to painting in the dark values in the scene with thin paint, locate the darkest and the lightest area of the scene and paint these notes of color in. Establishing as soon as possible the darkest and the lightest value, helps me to understand that all the other values have to fall some where in between these two contrasting values. After this, I block in the shapes in their appropriate color and value. The painting now has recognizable shapes, there is distance established, the light source and its direction is noted. This is what I refer to as the foundation of the painting. At this point, I will concentrate on just how much information I need to place in the painting as to not over-work the piece. I try to be sure that each brush stroke made is a meaningful stroke of paint and not just placed in hap-hazardly, thinking that I may push it around until it looks right. Spontaneity and assuredness is what I would like to leave the viewer. I hope that the end illusion is one of surprise that gives the viewer a new look of the world around us.

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