htly creepy faces in paintings by Kenney Mencher (one of my favorite local artists), and the compelling, slightly creepy faces in paintings by Lynn Rubenzer (one of my new favorite artists). It's like hooking up two wild friends you just knew would get along. Ha. Then they burn down your house.People are always telling secrets in Mencher's paintings. In Rubenzer's "The Inquiry" (above right), it looks like the secret is too ooky to tell -- but the gang is still leaning in with horrified fascination in case someone decides to confess.
It's a pleasure to sidle up close to these paintings; you can feel the whisper tickling your ear in Mencher's "Art Amnesia" (above, detail), and sense it in the warm, almost embarrassing glow suffusing the woman's face.
Rubenzer must have had fun with "French Doors" (above, detail), in which a warren of a city crowds onto the panels of two windows-slash-doors. It's a sort of reverse-Magritte realism that gets another dimension here: This work is up between two yellow windows in a nanotech facility. As you walk along the long hall, you catch glimpses of workers in bunny suits, more workers, Rubenzer's city, and more workers. Double-take.
Upstairs, Rubenzer's "House of Spades" (above, detail) gets the prime position in a break area cluttered with tables and chairs. Prime? Yep: It's across from a tall window that lets in cool natural light, bringing out the generous, thick, dig-your-fingers-in texture of the paint. Maybe no one will notice if you touch it.
Photos by Rebecca Wallace
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