Wheelerville, Population: 2

Bryan Wheeler, Creation Myth #52, 2005

Acrylic and pastel on wood

5 x 5 feet

Just outside of Lubbock, Texas, is the studio of  artists and brothers, Bryan and Jeff Wheeler. Fight any knee jerk reaction to regionalize their work. Otherwise, you'll short change your experience in Wheelerville.

The narrative is simple enough: burger joints, arid landscapes and girls, girls, girls. How does this translate into art and  what label do we give it? 

Vibrant layers of media that at first glance seem to spoof the arrested adolescence of West Texas denizens are laid down with charcoal, oil, pastels and acryllics. This is life and art come together, not just in the brown landscape of Lubbock, but in a truer, hyper Realistic sense. 

Bryan and Jeff Wheeler, Warranty, 2004

Acrylic, oil, charcoal and pastel on wood

5 x 5 feet

There is no  disparaging reappropriation or assemblage going on here except for what belongs to their memory's interpretation. This is how they break free of Regionalism - through subjectivity, rather than objectivity, as the truth belongs solely to the artists.

Bryan Wheeler, Brown Bag Special 2003

Charcoal and Pastel on paper

30  x 40 inches

Are they embracing the icons of their youth, or are they mocking the meaninglessness of the modern world, in sort of a Neo-Dadaistic approach? Noveau Realism that encourages collaboration that the two brothers engage in?

The construction of experience  exists in their work and proves label resistant. 

I hope to pay a visit to Wheelerville, aka Wheeler Bros Studio, in 2012 while visiting Lubbock and see if talking to the artists reshape my interpretation. Bryan and Jeff Wheeler are adjunct professors at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Bryan teaches painting and Jeff teaches drawing.