California-based artist and art history professor Kenney Mencher knows what it's like to be at the center of controversy, stemming from his artwork. In Mencher's case, past controversy resulted from successfully probing the unconscious with oil on canvas. His provocative slice-of-life paintings in a Realist style always tell a story with cryptic scenes, requiring viewers to dream up their own interpretations. This challenge prompts the question of who is bringing controversial notions to the party---the viewer or Mencher. He makes a point, but deftly balances this with viewer imagination, humor and mystery.

"You can tell an awful lot about a person by the stories they make up when looking at my paintings," says Mencher. "I think of my paintings as a kind of 'commedia del arte' in paint."

Kenney Mencher has shown extensively in the US for the past 20 years, but Lovers and Liars marks his first showing at Varnish Fine Art.

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