Organic Brush Marks: Art by Ken Herren
Carioca, acrylic-infused pumice on canvas
Ken Herren is a painter who blends wildly abstract, organic brush marks with strict, geometrically patterned compositions and cohesive colour schemes. The artist’s body of work speaks of contrast and visual reconciliation between the artist’s rural upbringing and his current urban lifestyle.
Django, acrylic-infused pumice on canvas
I really enjoy the thick, heavy textures of Ken’s paintings. As we saw in our previous feature of Ken’s expressions of worlds colliding, the artist uses a blend of ground pumice and acrylic pigment to create a thick, brightly coloured paste which is then applied liberally to an abstractly colourful canvas, creating a heavy layer of earthen texture that reveals moments of what seems almost like a different painting, below.
The artist’s works are a fine balance between cohesive composition and contrasting tension. Even in his Oddities and Other Stuff gallery, Ken demonstrates an affinity for this thick, textured style of painting, which also calls to mind the work of David Maxim or David Tycho.
