I'm Kenney Mencher. I'm an artist who left a tenured professorship in 2016 to pursue making art full time. This blog is about art, art history, with a emphasis on human rights. I make homoerotic art featuring bears, otters & other gay wildlife.
Long story, basically started with three things. I painted this in 2008 or so and it was picked up by a blogger on Tumblr named "Chubby Jay" who shared the sh!t out of it.
My florist who I buy flowers from every week for my partner suggested/asked me to paint some beautiful men for him. His friends came over and started to literally try to swipe the paintings from his walls. So I made more and started to sell them parallelly to my other subject matter such as film noir and photobooth stuff.
Then I watched this video on marketing by Michael Cuffe in which he talks a young woman who painted subjects that looked like her.
I realized that I felt like I was exploiting the young people and women I was painting and that I should paint people who looked like me that way I could avoid participating in making art for the male gaze and exploiting youth culture. So I started painting hairy slightly chubby middle aged men and it has kind of made my career. You should watch this guy's video.
These are the only sites authorized to sell my art:
QUEER|ART|FILM Aimee Goguen Presents BLUE VELVET and HEN, HIS WIFE August 16th, 8PM on Zoom
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QUEER|ART|FILM CLUB: Aimee Goguen Presents BLUE VELVET and HEN, HIS WIFE Monday, August 16th, 8pm — Zoom
Dear Friends,
Join us for the final discussion of our fourth "stay-at-home season" of Queer|Art|Film. Organized by curators Adam Baran and Jeanne Vaccaro, this summer at Queer|Art|Film Club, we're making a bold assertion: Queers Are Just Better! What, you disagree? You won't after watching our in-depth discussions with our punk AF lineup, including queer punk and glam rock legend Kid Congo Powers, acclaimed author Torrey Peters, experimental filmmaker Aimee Goguen and NYC icon and recent winner of the Queer|Art|Prize Award for Sustained Achievement, Julie Tolentino. Check out the queer classics that inspired them, then join us for compelling conversations about murderous drag performance artists, Swedish trans vampire children, lusty French sailors and oxygen-huffing sadists. There's a whole weird, queer world just under the surface, and we're going to bring its simmering stink into your homes this summer! Log in and queer out! This month, video artist Aimee Goguen presents two films: David Lynch's enduringly creepy cult classic BLUE VELVET and experimental animated short HEN, HIS WIFE by Russian artist Igor Kovalyov.
WHAT: Aimee Goguen Presents BLUE VELVET and HEN, HIS WIFE WHEN: Monday, August 16th @ 8PM EST WHERE: Zoom
BLUE VELVET 1986. 120 min. Directed by David Lynch
In David Lynch’s 1986 neo-noir thriller BLUE VELVET, a young man returns home and happens upon a dismembered human ear, a discovery that brings about many strange occurances, criminal encounters, and psycho-sexual awakenings. A self-fashioned detective (played by seemingly innocent Kyle MacLachlan), the young man’s obsession with solving the mystery leads to a romance (with the enigmatic and tortured Isabella Rosselini) that excites and disturbs his sense of self, culminating in a emotional collision course between the straight and perverse.
AIMEE GOGUEN ON BLUE VELVET:
Goguen was first introduced to BLUE VELVET in the 5th grade by her Aunt Janet, who gave her a VHS tape of the film along with a copy of William Burroughs’ 1959 novel, Naked Lunch. “I knew I was on to something if I loved it and my mom hated it,” Goguen says of Lynch’s “slow moving action film.” BLUE VELVET's play of darkness and shadow felt strangely familiar to Goguen’s internal sensibility and her physical surroundings in a gloomy military town in rural Washington state. She tried to figure out the lighting on her own, filming on her family’s Hi-8 camera, which she still uses to shoot analog video today.
HEN, HIS WIFE 1990. 13 min. Directed by Igor Kovalyov.
AIMEE GOGUEN ON HEN, HIS WIFE:
“I always pay attention to the way animators imagine movement. In HEN, HIS WIFE, Kovalyov generates depth in two dimensions, creating a psychedelic horror that collapses background and foreground into a delirious play of psychic surfaces. Like Lynch’s BLUE VELVET, the timing generates a high energy space for the viewer to inhabit.”
QUEER|ART|FILM
Presently celebrating its 11th consecutive year, this popular screening series, traditionally held monthly at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village, invites New York’s most notable and influential LGBTQ+ artists to present and discuss films that have inspired them. Presented with generous support from HBO, the series has hosted over 100 screenings and reaches more than 1,500 viewers annually. Past presenters include: Anohni, Kate Bornstein, Douglas Crimp, Miguel Gutierrez, Juliana Huxtable, Wayne Kostenbaum, Larry Kramer, Lisa Kron, Kia LaBeija, Craig Lucas, Genesis P-Orridge, Dee Rees, and Flawless Sabrina. Curated by Adam Baran and Ira Sachs, with special guest season curators.
A letter from Candystore, Leslie-Lohman Block Party Mistress of Ceremonies:
The Leslie-Lohman Museum’s annual block party is upon us, Saturday, August 28th from 3-7pm! I know it’s kind of a freaky time. For the past month I’ve been driving across the country and honey, I have seen America—its middle-of-nowhere gas stations, its small town gay bars, its Del Tacos (new fave), its obscure museums (what up Prairie Museum of Art and History in Colby, KS!). Sadly, what I didn’t see, were many face masks.
As we know, in America, contradiction is the spice of life! Some of us will die on that hill, defending the Liberty of the sole individual with every person for themselves. And some of us find greater importance in collective Liberty—no one is safe or free until we ALL are. It’s under these circumstances that I need you to show your support for queer artists and communities, and come party at the Leslie-Lohman Museum.
It’s high time we really show up for one another, protect each other, and hold up our neighborhoods and communities. It’s high time we make something good in this gloomy time. Come be safe with us and celebrate this unforgettable Summer of Love by sharing your joy! There is nothing more vital to our survival, nothing more queer, than finding joy right now.
Leslie-Lohman Summer Block Party
Saturday, August 28th, 3-7pm
26 Wooster St. (between Grand and Canal)
This is a public event. Masks and social distancing are heavily encouraged at all times and required when inside the Museum. We are monitoring the city's public health guidelines and will keep you informed of any changes to event protocol. Thanks!
