Dennis Liberty

Backyard Buddy, 2020

As I sat in my backyard reading each morning this past spring and early summer, BunBun arrived to inspect me. For over a month, BunBun wandered around the yard nibbling on the weeds, not afraid of me at all. I eventually decided to bring the camera along with my book and took a variety of photos of BunBun. This rabbit was perfect and I knew how to paint it from start to finish. I couldn’t resist the Albrecht Durer theme. Everything was aimed towards structurally enhancing BunBun and making it entirely the center of interest. The background was challenging, however, as it was imagined from the grasses I’ve painted before like, All Flesh Is Grass - Las Comadres No. 1. I'm especially proud of BunBun’s eye: how I captured the highlights, gentleness and beauty. I feel this is the best eye I've ever painted. In September, BunBun became bored with me and the backyard scenery and now hangs out in the front yard. I am already excited to meet the next generation of BunBuns.

Winter Visitor, 2020

It started out with the first stanza of the poem, Antigonish by Hughes Mearns.

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

In January 1975, I was looking at photos of a snow scene with fresh animal tracks but I was unable to find the critter in the photo. The Mearns poem suddenly came to me. At first glance I thought it was a rabbit but the footprints were wrong. As I reexamined the photo, I eventually saw a tail in the tracks and realized it was a mouse. I am not a photorealist painter in the same league as Joseph Raffael or Richard Estes, etc. The more I examine the image, the deeper I see the color components, the light and structure that are there. My goal is to change the image into a painting and not just reproduce a photo. With this painting, it was important to capture the pink blush of sunlight on the snow.

I originally painted I Saw A Man… in watercolor. Forty-five years later, I returned to this perfect image and repainted it in oil. I feel that the 2020 version of Winter Visitor is better than the original but I'm quite happy with both. They were each learning experiences.

High Plains Dancer, 2020

As a part of his dress uniform, my Father, Capt. Harold F. Liberty, USN, owned a Boat Cloak that he wore to formal evening functions. I inherited it after he died. It is beautiful, enormous, and well-made. The shape of the cape alone was graceful and the model had so much fun dancing with its swing and flow that the painting was finished in my mind before I put the first brush of paint on the canvas. I painted this in acrylics ca. 1978-79. While going through my old slides, the image spoke to me again. The image is iconic because not only is it an odd structure but it is also composed primarily blues and blacks. The challenge was making the dark blues and blacks of the cape interesting.

Nailing down mercury

When trying to pigeonhole the styles of artwork I’ve made over the years, family and friends say I “defy description.” At various times all of these labels have been applied to me and my artwork:

• photographer, cartoonist,
• plein air and landscape painter,
• abstract artist,
• landscape artist,
• clay, wood, bronze, plaster, wax sculptor,
• Fantasy Collectibles designer,
• muralist, illustrator,
• poet, memoirist,
• forger, jewelry maker,
• and more...