Exhibit by artist Randy Bacon featured at Ranching Heritage Center

Scott White, curator of art at the National Ranching Heritage Center, invited Texas artist Randy Bacon to exhibit his oil paintings, explaining he saw one of Bacon’s shows before ever meeting the artist.

“Familiar Territory: The Art Of Randy Bacon” is on exhibit at the NRHC through Jan. 28.

“Randy’s art caught my attention because his use of textures and colors was something I had not seen,” began White. “At least not at that skill level.

“But there also was something comforting about his images; they are familiar images of ground I’ve walked and seen.

“His paintings point out common sights of the rural communities that are passed every day, but he turns them into panoramic experiences.”

There may be no better description of these images than panoramic.

Influenced at least to a small part by his love of movies, Bacon’s art is immediately reminiscent of films watched in letterbox (wide screen) format, as though determined not to lose one iota of the land so inspirational in his mind’s eye.

Found at his combination home and studio in Albany, Bacon said, “My best paintings are places I know very well, or places that I have seen a lot. They become more interpretive, the more I work on them. They are sensory memories of places I like.

“I can even remember whether it was windy on the day I saw a place, whether the sun was on my face.”

Bacon never forgets to take a camera along on his long drives through West Texas.

A lifelong moviegoer, he noted that films had “shaped my dreams,” especially those “where setting is key, and land is character” — examples being “Giant,” “Hud,” “No Country for Old Men,” “Tender Mercies,” “Places in the Heart,” “The Last Picture Show,” “The Big Country” and “A Trip to Bountiful.”

The titles trip easily off his tongue, and he added, “West Texas and the Panhandle are so vast, their stories don’t fit in a traditional square-ish format.”

The result is that many of Bacon’s works emphasize width and are no more than 13 inches tall.

Bacon grew up in Abilene and loved to draw even as a child. He also liked journalism and found a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Southern Methodist University could anchor a career in advertising.

In 1987, he co-founded an advertising firm in Fort Worth, accepting the position of president after his years of experience as a copy writer, art director and media buyer.

But two decades later, he defied the advice of friends, gave up a successful business and escaped the corporate world.

Bacon entered the Master of Fine Arts program at Texas Christian University to study painting under Jim Woodson.

“They gave me a full scholarship to get a master’s in painting,” said Bacon, “and it was the best time I’ve ever had. Going back to school at 47, I had an appreciation for everything. The MFA program was kept small, only eight people, and Woodson liked to put an adult in the mix to raise the work ethic. I felt honored.”

Woodson calls Bacon a standout, focused graduate student.

“Randy seemed to be in the studio all the time. He made a lot of work, and it’s been my experience that someone who makes a lot of art often turns out some of the best art,” Woodson said. “It may come from his advertising background, but he also became ambitious to get his work out where more people could see it.”

Bacon knew he wanted to work with oils. He likes the physicality of the finished work.

He chuckled and said, “Plus, if you screw up in oils, you just put another layer on. You’re able to experiment while actually painting.”

Given a choice, he would prefer to stop, sketch a scene and use that as inspiration for a later painting.

“That’s a luxury I don’t often have,” he said. “So I keep a camera in the car.”

He began experimenting with his literal long-form paintings early, pointing out, “If you hold a camera up, all you see is a teeny square in the middle of a beautiful canvas.”

So it is not uncommon for Bacon to set up three easels, side-by-side, to support his extended canvas. Nor does he paint left to right, or top to bottom.

“I tend to work all over it,” said Bacon. “If there is an old ranch house I want to use as a focal point, I may work on that first. But it all tends to come together.”

Woodson recalls Bacon experimenting with this at TCU. “He even painted images that were almost 360-degree viewpoints. These were some of my favorites. Randy challenges the way that you experience the landscape.”

Most film and television programs do not inspire Bacon, but there are surprising exceptions, examples being the “beautiful minimalist landscapes” in cable television’s “Breaking Bad” and scenes in the “True Grit” movie remake that found him reaching for the pause button on his remote control.

One of his own paintings of Archer City includes a small bus; only later did Bacon wonder if he had included it to represent an iconic scene in “The Last Picture Show.”

His paintings may include telephone wires, a car or a mailbox; human figures are a rarity.

“Oh, I may paint one to add some small narrative mystery, or just for scale,” he noted.”

Bacon was thrilled to be asked to exhibit at the National Ranching Heritage Center, a museum he says he has often visited. He likes knowing that so many others appreciate the center’s historical buildings as much as he does, and believes that they will be the first to recognize many of the landscapes he represents in oil.

He said, “A lot of these scenes (in his paintings) may seem like forgotten places, overlooked places.

“But the idea is that, if we all just slow down, a lot of times the coolest stuff is what we can see along the way.”