trenton lee tiemeyer
art/poetry/photography
This is where I'm coming from, artistically speaking. I dig on the American Regionalism of Winslow Homer, John Steuart Curry, Maynard Dixon, John Rogers Cox, Andrew Wyeth, and Thomas Hart Benton, but the realism is more muted, the magic cranked all the way up. A little tight and heavy on perspective. Not the magic you'd see on a glitzy Las Vegas residency, the kind you see at a carnival when you're not tall enough for the good rides. My hand is steady enough for a paintbrush, but not deft enough for sleight of hand. Card tricks are out, I still can't shuffle a deck. I love the thick, messy lines and accidental colors and delicious textures of Post-Impressionism, but I also like what I see on the flyers of bands I haven’t seen in a long time, flapping on the wind outside the bar during soundcheck on a Sunday matinee. I like the paintings on the covers of old magazines. I like to see what happens if I do this instead of that. I grapple with the notion that it's all been done before, then I put that shit to bed and start painting something I want to see.
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Tiemeyer.
Art as the storyteller.
Trenton Lee Tiemeyer has spent a lifetime gathering the stories and songs and unheard prayers of the American heartland. A traveler by both trade and nature, he has scoured the bars and motels and minimum maintenance backroads of the small or unincorporated towns and not-quite-cities that only look the same if you aren’t looking close enough. The folk art and tall tales and legends are all brought together with a style both old as time, and uniquely his own.
“flywheel”
A belt-driven well stands a forgotten monument in the thick of a Kansas field. Sunflower, muskthistle and bristled rows of corn sway and dance in a lazy Fibonacci to the rhythms of the South wind that brings the rain and life that used to make the pump hum right along.
“flywheel” 24”x30” acrylic on canvas
$1000.00
“luthiers”
Two men running barbedwire along a row of hedgeposts. They scowl accordingly, because it wasn't done right the first time. The point of view in this painting is from the kid that did it wrong, but that kid don't mind. They're out at the river, and anyone running wire on a day like this has made enough mistakes of their own.
luthiers
24"x36"
acrylic on canvas
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Tiemeyer.
1000.00
“also starring art carney”
I've always held a large infatuation with carnivals, and for a time, it seemed that many of the choices I made in life took a carnival-adjacent turn or flavor. I liked the Americana of it. Grifters and rubes, three balls for a dollar. Machinery so old and worn down, repainted so the next town wouldn't know the Devastator used to be the Riptide that killed that boy last Summer. Bootleg KISS and Mötley Crüe merch, Michael Jordan flying through the sky on a mirror in a paper frame, and the real-deal-i-swear-to-god Elvis Presley counting crumpled ones and fives in the RV, with an ill-tempered dog or two chained outside for color. That's just plain art.
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Tiemeyer.
"also starring art carney"
36"x48"
acrylic on canvas
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Tiemeyer.
1500.00
“from kanopolis to kanorado”
I spawned this one on the dreaded and much-maligned drive through Western Kansas, en route to Denver. Kara and I were going to see The National at Fiddler's Green, and I saw plenty of beauty through the barren wasteland. In the interest of brevity, I decided to try to squeeze it all into one piece. Trains and fields and an endless patch of road. Acoustic and electric windmills. Limestone castles built to last forever by a people that were not, and towers of grain standing fast against rust and ruin, as long as the trains keep to task.
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Tiemeyer.
"From Kanopolis to Kanorado"
36"x36"
Acrylic on canvas.
1200.00
“in the spring the war was there...”
"Solitude for the sake of solitude" is a central theme that runs through many of my pieces. If there is a person, they may not even be the subject of the painting. The setting is what I'm after, and the subject is the place and time. I want to put the viewer inside, to see the vastness I see. I want them to feel the sun, the breeze. I want them to feel alive in the solitude, but not necessarily alone. The title is pulled from Hemingway.
“in the spring, the war was there, but we did not go to it anymore.”
30x40
acrylic on canvas
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Tiemeyer.
1,000.00
“tallgrass”-SOLD-
Tallgrass is set in the eponymous grasslands that run throughout the Kansas Ordinaries. Two hikers. The one in the foreground is all business, probably walking for time. The other, however… The other is doing it right, and the wind takes a lover.
“tallgrass”
24”x36”
acrylic on canvas
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Tiemeyer.
Sold.
“summit”
This one has a story. I spent a sizable portion of my youth waiting in the station wagon, the farmiest of farm implements. This is not our station wagon, we had a blue Plymouth. This is a Buick, and the color is the color of Dad's flatbed, the propane one that caught fire. Details notwithstanding, this is an accurate portrayal of a memory.
"summit"
30"x40"
acrylic on kansas
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Tiemeyer.
1500.00
“the American dream is still alive and well in Burbank”
I can hear and smell this painting. It checks off my boxes of "call of the open road" and "i guess you had to be there." A vacation slide from the trip that you don't like to talk about, but still need the occasional reminder as to why. I picked Burbank because that's where all the game shows were. A maybe too long station wagon pulling a maybe too small Airstream. Hope, downsized for travel. If Burbank is a bust, we can try our luck in Aberdeen. I've seen the postcards from Scotland.
24"x36"
acrylic on canvas
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Tiemeyer.
800.00
“every free and open range invariably has a fence somewhere”
A massive and sprawling Flint Hills landscape, scored over time by glacial drift and cattle paths. I painted the hills like an ocean swell, rolling the Earth itself up towards the heavens. I needed to smash a ten mile view into a three foot wide x four feet tall canvas. It still spills out,
“every free and open range invariably has a fence somewhere”
36”x48”
acrylic on canvas
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Tiemeyer.
1200.00
“pestilence”
The carcass of a grain truck lies in repose outside the city limits. As you walk towards it through the sharp and cool grass, all manner of insects herald your arrival. The grasshoppers and the wasps are in cahoots. Today, they have a common enemy. Tomorrow, the truce is over.
“pestilence”
20”x24”
acrylic on canvas
x
Tiemeyer.
500.00
“a murmuration, as ever unnoticed”
A farmer works the dirt along the treeline with a Farmall. Overhead and to the West, a flock of starlings in a liquid formation. When he was a kid, he could watch them fly all day. Now he can only look down towards the dirt of an Earth that holds no promise, but luck.
“a murmuration, as ever unnoticed”
30”x40”
acrylic on canvas
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Tiemeyer.
800.00
“The minutes leading up to the events of August 11th, 1953”
I wanted a sense of foreboding. A woman stands atop a hill outside her home. In one hand, she holds what’s left of the last chicken. In the other, a hatchet. She’s looking back at the house, and doing the math on how far she can get, if she goes through with it, 36”x36” acrylic on canvas.
$400.00
“transcontinental”
A frenetic take on the Old God of the New West. I used to watch them chug on past as a kid. When my arms got long enough, I decided to grab hold and take the wild ride. They look like they’re moving pretty slow. They are not, I assure you. If you aren’t already running alongside, you’ll need a fresh shoulder and a really good lie to tell your folks. 22”x28” acrylic on canvas.
800.00