Kev’Ron Madden
Fever Dreams in Western Scenes

With the Kittitas County Fair and Rodeo poised to rear its head, you should forget absolutely everything you thought you knew about cowboy art. Kev’Ron Madden is a Black painter and illustrator living and working in Dallas, Texas. Madden fuses surrealistic tendencies with traditional notions of Western art and proves that Texas can, in fact, be messed with. Like the landscape paintings that curiously hang upside-down in the PUNCH bar, Madden’s work disrupts the predictable troupes of Western Art and the loaded status of the cowboy as a symbol. Within these works, this mythical figure explores refreshingly new identities and unfamiliar territories that oftentimes become otherworldly. Madden’s visual language transcends the boundaries of reality, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in a world of heightened emotions and imaginative narratives while also being grounded in the familiarity that comes with cowboys, cacti, and all things wild west. The future and the past seem to collide, collapse and melt within these canvases, begging us to rethink traditional Western origin stories while simultaneously wondering why we are humming Steve Miller’s anthemic “Space Cowboy”.

Madden earned a BBA in Marketing from Stephen F. Austin in 2020. He has participated in multiple exhibitions and art fairs throughout the United States, including Barnstorm 2023 at Punch Gallery in Thorp, Washington, Summer City Idyll in New York, New York, and the Carroll Harris Simms National Black Art Competition and Exhibition in Dallas, Texas.

@kevjmadd
www.kevmadden.com

Additionally, our retail space feature’s the delightful work of Aaron Murray, a Seattle-based ceramicist whose work we simply adore. And you will too.

Join us for the opening on Saturday, August, from noon until 4 pm with live music by Black Grenade at 2-4pm.

Upcoming Events on the PUNCH Stage:

8/03: Black Grenade
[hip-hop/reggae mash-up] 2-4pm

8/10: Artist Talk 1-2pm
Expresso Bongo
[Latin-infused americana art-Jazz] 2-4pm

8/17: Seth Garrido
[outlaw soul] 2-4pm

8/24: Kama and the Headlight Children
[variety show of music, poetry and circus tricks] 2-4pm

8/31 (Last Saturday):
The Collections Department
[instrumental funky jams] 6-8pm