Local Boy Makes Good (Art)
Mammoth’s Skyler Kenny debuts “Oscillations” at Mono Inn
Starting Thursday August 4, The Mono Inn in Lee Vining will host an exhibit of acrylic paintings by local painter and cartoonist Skyler Kenny. Kenny’s exhibit, “Oscillations,” features images of emotive, human-like creatures with expressive, cartoonish features. “I try to depict human experience in my artwork. [This show is] about the complicated relationships people have with the world around them and with each other.”
Kenny was born and raised in Mammoth Lakes. “I had this incredibly supportive series of elementary school teachers who were artists,” he said. He told The Sheet that he was first exposed to the influence of artists like Picasso and Dali in Mrs. Richardson’s fourth grade class at Mammoth Elementary School. “We’d focus on a new artist every month and she’d have us take crayons and try to replicate a different style.”
After graduating from Mammoth Lakes High School, Kenny studied figure drawing, print making, book binding and animation at College of the Redwoods in Humboldt County and at Santa Barbara City College. At that time, Kenny was writing, illustrating, and printing his own comic books out of the kitchen of his Santa Barbara Apartment. In 2010, he printed one hundred volumes of his book, “Bones, Thugs n’ Harvest,” which he distributed by sneaking copies in between books at book stores and libraries around the city. It was around that time that he decided to return to Mammoth Lakes. “This town is very conducive to being creative. It wasn’t so much about trying to sell art or creating a scene, but about the creative culture of the place. I think people are creative in the way they make a living here. You have to be. And then there is just such a culture of self-expression and creativity to the way people engage the outdoors.”
