Seeing Wichita through acrylic and oil

For many artists, inspiration comes from their surroundings – that’s one of the reasons why many aspire to live in naturally scenic locales.

Some artists in Wichita, though, are perfectly content with their current surroundings, finding inspiration in what some may find commonplace.

With a recent surge in civic pride, demand for Wichita-themed art appears to be on the rise, and some local painters have found a niche creating Wichita cityscapes.

Just recently, Brian Hinkle’s downtown cityscape, “Douglas and Topeka,” won best-of-show at the National Small Oil Painting Exhibition at Mark Arts.

The artists all employ different methods, but they share a common trait: a desire to highlight the beauty that often passes by unnoticed.

“I think the whole urban pride movement is a big cultural force right now – that’s probably in part why the appeal of painting the city came back up this year,” Hinkle said. “People in my generation would talk about when people moved out and then moved back, you got sucked back into the ‘Wichita vortex.’ That was a very common phrase in my day and it was not the civic pride thing it is today. It wasn’t viewed as a culture center, and now it is a little more.”

Biking to find possible paintings

Richard Davies often bikes Wichita.

He does it for the exercise, yes, but more importantly to find scenes to paint.

He’s painted the Anchor, Mead’s Corner, Delano, the Orpheum, downtown’s First Baptist Church and many more.

“Almost all my bike rides – unless I’m with my wife – are for the purpose of finding things to paint,” Davies said. “I bring a sketch book and a lot of sketch materials. Sometimes I’ll bring gouache to make color notes, and I sit down and sketch away. ... Sometimes I do actually bring an easel out to paint it.”

As a realist painter, Davies tries to reproduce photorealistic images, though he edits, swapping colors and cropping out cars. The editing is done to evoke emotion, he said.

“When (people) just take a photograph, they’re not thinking in terms of art – they’re just recording an event,” he said. “To them it’s representative of a memory. ... When you approach painting or a photograph from an artist’s perspective, then you have to have something that speaks to a person who’s not familiar with that event or that person. You have to reach deep inside them and touch their instincts, their humanity, for them to appreciate the paintings.”

For example, his painting of the Anchor evokes loneliness in that there are no cars in its parking lot and the front patio is barren, but the bar also is supposed to look inviting with its neon signs in the windows, he said. He stood on Douglas early one Thanksgiving morning to sketch it, he said.

To explain why he paints Wichita, he references a personal philosophy, the “objective correlative,” once championed by T.S. Eliot.

“Everything we see has a different psychological import,” he said. “If you study it closely and work hard, you can capture that feeling in a still life, a portrait, or a landscape. Every day, we drive by buildings and scenes that we largely ignore unless, of course, we work there or had some sort of event that happened in our lives (there). I try to bring these things to the forefront, make them emotionally and psychologically available and strike a chord in whoever looks at the painting.”

Davies, who once owned Kirby’s Beer Store by Wichita State University, said he’s “always loved Wichita.”

“I’ve just been really proud of the way this city has grown and united around the art scene,” which includes local craft breweries, Davies said.

Davies’ art is on display (and for sale) at Autumn and Art in Bradley Fair this weekend.

Adapting to new technologies

Longtime Wichita painter Bill Goffrier recently returned to Wichita after a year of living in Alaska and is continuing his “Authenti-City” series of cityscape paintings.

Goffrier often posts paintings he makes on his Facebook page.

He enjoys the directness of Facebook to connect with potential buyers, he said.

“I would sell them like that,” he said. “The more I did that, the more encouraging it was. I would post them and Wichita people loved seeing places they recognized.”

His “Authenti-City” series is now up to 60 paintings – most of which are small oils, 5-by-7-inch paintings, smaller than a standard sheet of paper. The decision to paint small, realistic images of Wichita locales like Savute’s Italian Ristorante, North High School, and the Kansas Masonic Home has been a prudent one, he said.

“My wife had this brilliant idea. She said, ‘People have a hard time paying for original paintings like you’re trying to sell,’” Goffrier said. “‘You’re asking fair prices, but people can’t spend that kind of money, so why don’t you paint little paintings so you don’t have to price them so high.’”

Goffrier also frequently takes commissions – painting anything from a family dog to houses to restaurants.

“If it makes people happy, it’s great,” he said.

His series was originally going to be limited to scenes along Douglas, but he has since expanded his criteria for inclusion, painting scenes like the Exploration Place and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Allen House in College Hill.

He enjoys bringing an easel outside and painting on the street, he said.

“I was painting downtown in the early, early mornings when the city’s just waking up and seeing what happens down there,” he said. “The hipsters start heading down from their loft apartments, walking their dogs and getting coffee, but then you see these really down-and-out people. Where they’re going, I don’t know, but it was really interesting to be in it. That’s why I love it.”

Goffrier sells prints of his work at Art and Frame Ink, 1317 N. Maize – you can find some online at www.artframeink.com/bill-goffrier.

A career in Christmastime scenes

Many longtime Wichitans know Hugh Greer for his annual Christmas card paintings.

The cards originated as a project of the Heart Association and are now put out by the Independent Living Resource Center.

Greer has painted wintertime scenes of College Hill Park, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the Orpheum, the Sedgwick County Zoo and Union Station, which then grace the center’s Christmas cards every year.

This year he’s doing another scene in College Hill Park.

“It’s what they relate to,” said Greer, 73. “If you can paint something that people say, ‘Oh, I know where that is,’ or, ‘I’ve seen that, I’ve been there,’ that’s of course why we do the Christmas card. Almost everybody can put themselves into the picture.”

Greer, who is represented by galleries both in Kansas and New Mexico, said he paints these hyper-realistic cityscapes partially because he knows that’s what people want to buy. He enjoys painting buildings because he has background in architecture, he said.

“What catches their eye to begin with … is they relate to it,” he said. “It’s something that they recognize and they’ve driven by hundreds of times in the process of living here in Wichita.

“It’s kind of a neat combination to paint what you like and what people like to buy.”

For the Christmas card series, Greer sells the original paintings and then gives the Independent Living Resource Center the rights to produce and sell prints at no extra charge.

“I’ve had artists say you ought to be getting a royalty for all this, and I say, ‘You’re crazy – this is thousands of dollars worth of free advertising,’” Greer said. “You’ve heard of starving artists – I can’t always donate to all the charities, but I can certainly give my time doing this.”

Greer does more than just Christmas scenes – he regularly paints the Flint Hills, and he’s done non-winter scenes in Riverside and College Hill.

“I don’t want to live anywhere else,” he said. “I’ve had a chance to live other places, but I’m going to stay right here.”

This story was originally published September 16, 2016 at 2:30 PM with the headline "Seeing Wichita through acrylic and oil."