By Bonnie Gangelhoff
For painter Randy Bacon, there is no place like Texas—West Texas, that is. “The colors and the light are different from anywhere else,” Bacon says. “The dirt gets orange, the skies turn electric blue, and the cotton fields vibrate in shades of green.”
Based in Fort Worth, Bacon regularly takes to the road in search of source material, stopping in small towns like Palo Pinto, Pecos, Stockton, and Marfa where the western way of life lives on. “The journey is more important than the destination,” he says. Bacon’s goal is to look for scenes that tell a story, narratives that evoke mysteries as if something is about to occur just over the horizon. He is likely to stop the car and either sketch or snap photos of the scene. Once back in his studio, he attempts to capture the same sense of place that first drew him to the image. Observers have commented that some of Bacon’s West Texas landscapes remind them of the opening of a movie. Such comments suit him just fine, the native Texan says, because one of his missions is to make all of his work appear “cinematic.”
For inspiration, Bacon looks to a range of painters, from Edward Hopper, “a master of reduction,” to Dan Blagg, a painter known for his gritty urbanscapes. Bacon is represented by David Dike Fine Art, Dallas, TX, and Carter Bowden Art and Antiques, Fort Worth, TX.
Featured in “Artists to Watch” June2006