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Reimagining the West: Billy Schenck incorporates photorealist techniques with a pop art sensibility

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'Women of the Canyons'

鈥榃omen of

the Canyons鈥

By Billy Schenck

WHERE: Blue Rain Gallery,

544 S. Guadalupe St., Santa Fe

MORE INFO: blueraingallery.com, 505-954-9902

Billy Schenck still remembers climbing up the stone rocks at Acoma Pueblo to see the sweeping views when he was 5 years old.

鈥淚 was with my folks,鈥 the pop art-meets-the-West artist said. 鈥淚 have such a distinct memory of climbing up the stone steps of Acoma. The Natives were all in white robes and blankets. It was monsoon season 鈥 the clouds out there 鈥 and you could see 30鈥40 miles.鈥

Reimagining the West: Billy Schenck incorporates photorealist techniques with a pop art sensibility

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鈥淲omen of the Canyons,鈥 Billy Schenck, oil on canvas, 30x50 inches.
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鈥淭he IRS Agents,鈥 Billy Schenck, oil on canvas, 30x40 inches.
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鈥淰iew from Hunt鈥檚 Mesa,鈥 Billy Schenck, oil on canvas, 22x40 inches.
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鈥淎 Day of Clouds,鈥 Billy Schenck, oil on canvas, 35x36 inches.
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鈥淏ack Canyons,鈥 Billy Schenck, oil on canvas, 30x30 inches.
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鈥淒ark Walls,鈥 Billy Schenck, oil on canvas, 22x28 inches.
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鈥淔irst Light at Cedar Mesa,鈥 Billy Schenck, oil on canvas, 22x40 inches.

The artist-turned-rancher鈥檚 latest work, 鈥淲omen of the Canyons,鈥 is on display at Santa Fe鈥檚 Blue Rain Gallery.

Schenck鈥檚 work incorporates photorealist techniques with a pop art sensibility, both mocking and exalting images of the West. Cowboys, Native Americans and rugged landscapes predominate his palette.

Schenck is known for creating cinematic imagery reproduced in a flattened, reductivist style. Colors sit side-by-side rather than blended or shadowed. The August 2014 issue of Southwest Art magazine described his work as 鈥渁 stance 鈥 a pendulum between the romantic and the irreverent.鈥

The title painting 鈥淲omen of the Canyons鈥 features a trio of women working in a Southwestern landscape at dusk.

鈥淚鈥檝e been painting women since 1976,鈥 Schenck said. 鈥淚鈥檝e been painting women with guns, self-confidence, independence, not needing a male presence.

鈥淚 do like doing portraits,鈥 he added. 鈥淚 like doing paintings where there is a great view.鈥

Acoma planted that first seed, the artist said. Schenck grew up in Ohio. Comic books provided another early inspiration, especially the characters Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge.

The Columbus College of Art 鈥渢hrew me out,鈥 he said, so he switched to the Kansas City Art Institute.

鈥淲hen I started working from photographs in 1968, the dean and the art department all told me I had to stop,鈥 Schenck.

He quit painting, creating a handmade book instead. He moved to New York City, where his style flourished. An acquaintance at a Soho gallery showed him the work of the photorealist Chuck Close, the pop sculptures of Duane Hanson and the early pop art of Clem Clarke.

鈥淚t gave me permission,鈥 Schenck said.

鈥淚 definitely liked the pop artists,鈥 he added. 鈥淚 worked for Andy Warhol. I crashed with Lou Reed, Nico and John Cale. I was a gofer for the light crew.

鈥(Andy) was really quite shy,鈥 Schenck continued. 鈥淚 was in awe of Andy. The very first art show I saw was his soup cans.鈥

The pop art of Roy Lichtenstein, with its dots and headlines, inspired Schenck to use captions in his paintings.

Schenck鈥檚 first New York solo show sold out in 1972. He was soon in demand in Brussels, Zurich, London, Paris and Milan, Italy.

Schenck approaches his compositions like movie stills, in part because he was on the set of the 1973 Glenn Ford movie 鈥淪antee,鈥 which was filmed in Santa Fe. He drapes his subjects in Navajo blankets, jewelry and more.

鈥淚 love the horses, the saddles, the guns and the ropes,鈥 he said.

The pottery in 鈥淲omen of the Canyons鈥 is his own.

鈥淲ith the silhouettes, you can鈥檛 tell whether they鈥檙e ancient or contemporary.鈥

Humor gives him a chance to create political and social commentary. 鈥淭he IRS Agents鈥 shows a furious, fedora-hatted gunman beneath the caption 鈥淭he I.R.S. agents just kept coming.鈥

A genuine cowboy himself, Schenck is a ranch-sorting world champion and the proprietor of the Double Standard Ranch in Santa Fe, his home for the past two decades.

Schenck鈥檚 artwork hangs in 54 museum collections, including Smithsonian Institution, Denver Art Museum, The Autry Museum of Western Heritage, Booth Western Art Museum, Tucson Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, the Mesa Southwest Museum, Museum of the Southwest in Midland, Texas, the Albuquerque Museum and the New Mexico Museum of Art. Private collections include the estate of Malcolm Forbes, Laurance Rockefeller, the estates of Fritz Scholder, and Sylvester Stallone. Corporate collections include American Airlines, IBM, Sony, and Saatchi & Saatchi.