InSight Gallery | October 1-22, 2021 | Fredericksburg, TXs

The Technicolor West

Contemporary Western painters Billy Schenck and Jeremy Winborg unveil new work at InSight Gallery.

Two-artist shows often provide unique opportunities to recontextualize artists in fresh and exciting ways, and nowhere is that more evident than in a new show at InSight Gallery in Fredericksburg, Texas, in which the up-and-coming phenom Jeremy Winborg is paired with the Western pop icon Billy Schenck. Jeremy Winborg, Wondering While Wandering, oil, 20 x 30”

The two artists have several similarities: They both use vivid color and don’t shy away from saturated, even exaggerated, paint hues. They both work in contemporary styles, with Schenck’s paint-by-numbers iconography pairing perfectly with Winborg’s deconstructed realism. And both have a subversive streak in their subject matter, with Winborg painting his “badass women” of the desert, and Schenck skewering the myths of the West in some work while celebrating it in others.

What becomes clear, though, especially in this new two-artist show, is how much both men adore the West and its protagonists. Schenck paints his subjects posing heroically against the ruggedness of the land or the soaring expanse of the sky; his cowboys and Native American figures are affixed to the earth as monuments to the sun. For Winborg, he seems to rely on the strength of the face and the emotion it can convey, sometimes in close-up, as serious eyes peer intently from his canvas. Billy Schenck, Cutting Calves Off, oil, 24 x 36”

For Winborg, the pairing with Schenck was a professional milestone. “Billy was my No.1 choice when InSight asked me about a two- or three-artist choice. I was ecstatic to show with him. Of course, I’ve watched his work for years and years and loved it. I even met him in 2019 at the Briscoe [Western Art Museum] after we were seated at the same table. He was the most interesting person I’ve ever talked to. The stories he was telling…” Winborg says. “What I like about Billy is he’s a showman. His art is certainly important, but it’s also his personality. I think we’re going to pair well together at InSight.”

Paintings that Winborg will be showing include Smokescreen, showing a Native American woman blowing into a small fire she’s trying to get started in her hands, and also Wondering While Wandering, depicting a woman on a horse with a lance amid brilliantly clear light. The Utah painter sometimes abstracts the background with a flurry of paint, but in this work the sky is largely clear, which gives the rider a more prominent place amid the cactus-lined horizon. In Evening Sentinel he paints intense light raking against a horse and rider, as if it were an overexposed piece of film. The colors are softer, though still intensely beautiful, in In Steady Hands, showing a father teaching his daughter how to shoot a rifle.Jeremy Winborg, Smokescreen, oil, 16 x 16”

It’s this experimentation with color, composition and technique that intrigues Schenck, which is what draws him to some of the rising stars coming up behind him, including Logan Maxwell Hagege, Glenn Dean and Winborg. Although known for his connections to the Pop Art movement in New York, Schenck has lived for many years in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in a sprawling compound nestled within wooded hills. His studio, situated across a courtyard from his vast art-lined home, is filled with books, stacks of CDs, shelves of vinyl, carousels of slides and folders of images—enough inspiration for several lifetimes. Depending on his inspiration, or even just his mood, he will sample from any number of sources, always giving it that wry Schenck twist that transforms a mundane Hollywood production still into a sardonic commentary on the Old West. Or even just a simple landscape into a sprawling technicolor masterpiece. Billy Schenck, La Bajada Hill, oil, 24 x 30”

“Schenck [embraces] a new cast of Western characters: cowboys all getted-up with nowhere to roam, Cadillac cowboys leading the trail of the nouveau riche, cowgirls wielding their own guns, and the despondently disenfranchised left in the dust…” Amy Abrams writes in the 2013 book Schenck in the 21st Century. “…Coupling his continued appropriation of cinematic images with clever captions typeset or scrolled across his canvases, prints and photographs (reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein and his core resource, comic books—Schenck’s childhood past time), Schenck’s talent for satire emerged full force. With a focus on social and political commentary, these commanding artworks—initialized in the ’80s and continuing to this day—are at times (and often all at once), comic, revealing and self-deprecating.”Jeremy Winborg, Evening Sentinel, oil, 13 x 16”

At any given moment on Schenck’s studio wall—he doesn’t appear to use an easel—there could be a wide variety of subject matter, including his famous caption paintings, cowboys shooting holes into Monument Valley, breathtaking landscapes, surfer girls catching waves in Wyoming lakes, and even Western nudes, which are rare within a genre known for its modesty and wholesome values. The artist, still widely known by nicknames such as Billy Famous and the Warhol of the West, paints anything that speaks to him. “I want it to be a little subversive,” he says as he flips through catalogs showing works that glorify the Native American victory at Little Bighorn, pieces that lament the passing of the West or cowboys that seem to be confused by the roles they are playing. It’s this irreverence that allows him to touch on the deeper truths of the West. “That’s the fun of all this, is saying the things that no one else really wants to say.”Billy Schenck, Enigma, oil, 40 x 30”

Schenck’s works in the InSight show are more thoughtful and introspective, with images of cowboys, women and Native Americans admiring the setting they find themselves in. In Cutting Calves Off and Two Opinions, the artist uses a cliff wall to cut into the composition and frame his subjects, and he does it from two opposing angles—one in light, the other in shadow. In Enigma he paints a Native American figure standing tall amid the folds of a loosely wrapped blanket with a mesmerizing design. La Bajada Hill shows a classic cowboy, but encases him within the form of a distant cloud that is rendered simply, but with momentous power as it towers over the horse and rider. These are classic Schenck images, each bursting with color and the artist’s famous style. Jeremy Winborg, In Steady Hands, oil, 20 x 20”