Artist Showcase: Painter + Illustrator Cody Kuehl

Church Bell. –Cody Kuehl — “Church Bell.” This and “Flush” and are two of the early ones that are still some of my most popular images. I think they encapsulate how powerful the Western genre is with storytelling. With just a few small details, people can populate a whole story right in the middle of the action. –Cody Kuehl

Riding Into Town. –Cody Kuehl — “Riding Into Town” was initially based on a historical photo of Leadville. I have been going to some of the local old western towns to get some photos, as well. It’s been an interesting experiment to have the actual topography of a place and then imagine the characters in that world. All of the three-layer ones originated from my use of a cell-shaded approach in my painting. There was a moment when I was thinking that these were so similar to an animation approach, that why not make it super literal. –Cody Kuehl

Longing. –Cody Kuehl — “Longing” captures my goal of giving enough details to let someone tell their own story to the image and add their idea of what’s happening and populate the painting with their world. –Cody Kuehl

Church Bell. –Cody Kuehl — “Flush.” This and “Church Bell” are two of the early ones that are still some of my most popular images. I think they encapsulate how powerful the Western genre is with storytelling. With just a few small details, people can populate a whole story right in the middle of the action. –Cody Kuehl

Raiders. –Cody Kuehl — “Raiders” is a compilation of some reference photo work with some created landscape and cityscape. This one was initially done as a comp for a commission that they didn’t choose. When they decided on the other sketch, I was plenty happy to paint it up on my own because it was just a fun, kinda fish-eye forced perspective. With the three layers and plexiglass, it just really pops. Someday I’d like to make these pieces with interactive movable panes. –Cody Kuehl

Mural, Naked Grouse Whisky and Star Bar in Denver, CO. –Cody Kuehl — This is a mural from last April that I worked on with Naked Grouse Whisky and Star Bar down on Larimer [in Denver]. I hadn’t gone quite this large before so it was a great challenge to figure out first, how to do it but also execute the vision they had. This mural is 19.5′ x 19.5′ and is one of my favorite recent projects. We were fighting weather and had a storm the weekend before so we had a 5-day window to knock it out. I had a crew of both artists and non-artists who helped me to keep this one on track. –Cody Kuehl

Artwork provided by the artist.

NAME: Cody Kuehl
OCCUPATIONS: Illustrator, Mixed Media, Painter
LOCATION: Denver, Colorado, USA
ART: artofcodykuehl.com| Instagram: @artofcodykuehl | | Facebook