David Kammerzell | The West Reimagined

David Kammerzell’s cowboys and cowgirls blend western nostalgia with modern wit

By Bonnie Gangelhoff

David Kammerzell, Two Gun Tom, oil, 24 x 24.

This story was featured in the August 2020 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art August 2020 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story.

DAVID KAMMERZELL says it all started with a painting titled YOUR HUCKLEBERRY. Next came a cowboy named Buck, followed by TWO GUN TOM. These three paintings are examples of some playful new works by the Colorado-based artist. They share an intriguing design element that he hadn’t used before: Each cowboy wears a shirt in the same pattern as the painting’s background. The resulting effect lends wit, as well as a slightly surreal, almost ghostlike touch, to the pieces. In sharp contrast to the rough-hewn image of cowboys, the backgrounds are a delicate, almost floral design. “I’ve always liked the idea of putting things together that are contrasting, like scruffy cowboys with your grandmother’s wall-paper,” Kammerzell says.

The juxtaposition speaks to the artist’s trademark sense of humor and quirkiness that’s sprinkled throughout his body of work. Observers often describe Kammerzell’s style as cowboy pop or contemporary nostalgia. “I want to create visually compelling pieces of art in a style that is reminiscent of and pays homage to the great illustrators of the 20th century,” he says. “I try to imbue the works with a bittersweet nostalgia.”

: David Kammerzell, Cabaret Cowgirl, oil, 16 x 16.

: David Kammerzell, Gypsy Cowgirl, oil, 24 x 18.

: David Kammerzell, My Corona, oil, 24 x 18.

Those early magazine illustrators created hundreds of covers and advertisements for popular publications like The Saturday Evening Post. Kammerzell views J.C. Leyendecker (1874-1951) as a particularly gifted artist of the era and an inspiration. “Leyendecker kept it real and stylized at the same time,” he says. “If you look at his work, it is a collection of curves. He takes an arm and breaks it down into elegant, sweeping curves. And everything in the work is treated with the same attention to detail, from the sheen on a hand to the folds of a woman’s gown.”

Kammerzell’s cast of characters are more likely to wear guns than gowns. The cowboys and cowgirls that inhabit his world arrive after he scours public libraries and museum collections for reference material. The artist chooses his muses much like a casting director might choose actors for the movies. His mission: to find images of ranchers, wranglers, and rodeo riders that evoke the romance and spirit of the West from the late 19th to the early 20th century.

Many of Kammerzell’s creative decisions are made before he even mixes his oils and heads to the easel. First there is a stop at Photoshop, where the vintage photographs get a makeover. The software allows him to enhance, exaggerate, and simplify reference images, a process he mastered during his successful career in television animation. In fact, the image goes through many changes and iterations on the road to becoming a compelling final mock-up. Black-and-white photos may eventually morph into bright, cheerful colors, for example. The result: a fresh, modern take on the West. Kammerzell refers to his final mock-up as his “north star,” which will serve to guide him through the thorny passages and problems that he may encounter during the painting process.

: David Kammerzell, The Charm, oil, 20 x 16.

: David Kammerzell, A Cowgirl Case for Curves, oil, 24 x 20.

: David Kammerzell, Bow Chicka Wow Wow, oil, 10 x 10.

As an example, take the painting CABARET COWGIRL. Kammerzell began with a faded photograph of a cowgirl standing in front of a bar. He liked what she was wearing—studded leather chaps, a low-slung holster, and a patterned vest topped with a bandana. But he wasn’t so enamored with her expressionless face. Sifting through some vintage photos, he came across a silent-film starlet with a sultry, mysterious demeanor and the distinctive bobbed haircut popular in the flapper era. Much better. To help create the “cabaret vibe” that he imagined for the piece, Kammerzell decided to give his flapper cowgirl a cigarette encased in a holder. He recruited his wife as a model and snapped a photo of her hand, posed as if she is about to puff on a cigarette. To add additional drama, the artist decided the cowgirl needed a hat larger than the one pictured in the original image. “Bigger hats are always better,” he says. “So I borrowed Mabel Strickland’s hat from an old photo. She was a champion rodeo performer back in the day.” Taking a page from the playbook of his previous career in television, Kammerzell says he is glamming up, or “Hollywood-izing,” the images. “In TV talk, it’s called breaking through the clutter,” he says.

Many of the cowboys and cowgirls from bygone eras are unknown and unidentified in the photos, but on occasion viewers might spot a cowboy who resembles a silent-film star. For TWO GUN TOM, Kammerzell was inspired by an old movie still picturing the legendary cinema cowboy Tom Mix (1880-1940), who he says was the perfect “blend of Hollywood cowboy glamour and a real cowboy.” Mix knew how to ride, rope cattle, and shoot a gun because he once worked on a ranch. TWO GUN TOM is one of the six Kammerzell paintings sold earlier this year at the Coors Western Art
Exhibit & Sale in Denver.

: David Kammerzell, Buck, oil, 30 x 30.

: David Kammerzell, Florenz, oil, 12 x 9.

: David Kammerzell, How I Wish, oil, 20 x 16.

KAMMERZELL was born in Houston, TX, but his family eventually moved to the Denver area, where he grew up. Although both cities host major livestock and rodeo shows every year, Kammerzell says those weren’t part of his childhood experience. However, during his early years, there was what he calls “a cultural phenomenon” unfolding before him: a cowboy craze. “Cowboy stuff was everywhere,” he recalls. “It was on TV and in the movies. Kids would dress up in full cowboy gear. There were cowboy lunch boxes and cowboy sheets for your bed. I remember visiting some relatives in rural East Texas, and they had cowboy furniture made from wagon wheels and upholstered spotted cowhides.” Those memories left a strong impression.

As a child Kammerzell enjoyed drawing and took several art classes in high school. Although he was somewhat ambivalent about the lifestyle of the “starving artist,” he nonetheless attended art classes at both Arizona State University in Tempe and Metropolitan State College in Denver, working toward a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. In the mid-1980s he began a career as a freelance illustrator, eventually working with clients such as Coors Brewing Company and Colorado’s Keystone ski resort.

In the early ’90s he moved on to television, creating graphic animations for a CBS affiliate in Denver. Three years later Kammerzell jumped over to Starz, the premium cable network. There he rose through the ranks and was eventually promoted to be the director of on-air design. He won countless industry awards, including an array of regional Emmy awards, and all the while he painted whenever he had free time. One day, after 20 years at the network, Kammerzell was called into the human-resources department and told that his position was being eliminated. “I took that as a sign that the universe was telling me it was time to start painting full time,” he says.

: David Kammerzell, Mi Cielo Azul, oil, 40 x 30.

: David Kammerzell, Ms. LaDue, oil, 24 x 20.

: David Kammerzell, Ode to Tunis, oil, 40 x 40.

STEP INSIDE Kammerzell’s Denver-area studio, and he is likely to warn you that the space is “hopelessly messy.” There are dozens of art books, brushes, paints, and trinkets scattered about, including a Hawaiian tiki head that often hangs from his easel. (Kammerzell jokes that it is said to promise its owner wealth, health, and happiness.) “I’m not sure how an artist who paints as neatly as I do can have such a messy studio,” he says.

Currently on his easel is a portrait of Guy Weadick, a cowboy, performer, and promoter best known as the founder of the annual Calgary Stampede rodeo in Alberta, Canada (and as the husband of famed cowgirl Florence LaDue). A few nonwestern paintings inhabit the studio, too—on occasion Kammerzell paints still lifes and landscapes, but his retro cowboys and cowgirls are at the heart of his art.

One of the prominent features in the studio is what Kammerzell calls his “chair of contemplation,” where he rests and attempts to solve some of the problems that arise during the creative process. “I may take a look through books or ask myself, “What would J.C. (Leyendecker) do?” As a designer or animator, Kammerzell made dozens of decisions every day, he says. He regularly asked himself what would improve the work, adding, “The same is true for my work now.”

: David Kammerzell, Pedro Esquival, oil, 45 x 44.

: David Kammerzell, The Next Chapter, oil, 24 x 24.

: David Kammerzell, Western Nouveau II, oil, 36 x 28.

As this story was going to press, Kammerzell had recently finished several paintings for the annual Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale in Cody, WY. One is a portrait of a rodeo champion. Another one, MY CORONA, features an unknown cowgirl. “MY CORONA is what happens when you are searching for a title for your piece while painting in the age of the coronavirus and listening to The Knack’s song My Sharona,” the artist explains with a laugh.

Ultimately, he advises viewers to not dig too deep looking for hidden messages and agendas in his paintings. There are none. And he is not sure why he chose the West as subject matter, other than because it’s a blank canvas where he can create narratives both real and imagined, he says. “Maybe I’m creating my nostalgic childhood vision of what western culture was like. I’m always interested in evoking a nostalgic response in the viewer, in creating a place where the lines between remembering and yearning are blurred.”

representation
Giacobbe-Fritz Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM; Abend Gallery, Denver, CO.