Kerri Menchaca joined her father in oil painting classes when she was in high school and started showing her works in local galleries at age fifteen. Taught by Dennis Blagg, a Fort Worth artist, she developed her painting style in realism. She paints primarily Texas landscapes from photographs that she takes while on road trips in a 1968 Early Bronco which she restored herself. Her paintings focus on the sensory aspects of nature, created with an attention to mood, color and light.
Kerri attended the University of Texas in Austin where she graduated with degrees in Art and Art History and a minor in Geology. At UT she studied with artists Melissa Miller and Michael Ray Charles. Kerri currently lives in Fort Worth and oversees the permanent art collection in the Mary Couts Burnett Library Archives at TCU.
Statement
“The landscapes of Texas state and national parks and the back roads of rural Texas are frequently the subject matter of Kerri Menchaca’s paintings. In these settings, the vast expanse of a Texas sky is unobstructed by city structures and the sunset receives the room it deserves to stretch across the horizon. Our relationship with the landscape, and with the public lands of Texas itself, should be cherished and we are fortunate to be stewards of such beauty. It is this experience that I strive to capture in my paintings with colors that are lusciously vibrant and as intense and unforgiving as the land itself.”
– Kerri Menchaca