Kendall Davenport is an extremely sensitive
artist who has found a way to paint powerful paintings in exquisite detail yet
they come from his imagination and his heart. His paintings are not ordinary
paintings. He has gone beyond
traditional art forms and created a new art form which allows him to paint
astounding paintings with feelings of hope and renewal along with the
delightful feeling of being in real nature.
Kendall was born and
raised near the entrance of Yellowstone Park and the Grand Tetons in eastern
Idaho where he still enjoys hiking, motor cycling, canoeing, and fishing on all
the back trails. Born into a family of
poets, writers, and musicians, his French-English heritage gives him passion,
sensitivity, and a flair for perfectionism.
When
Kendall was growing up his family had an electronics repair business. He was told that survival depended on his
being part of it. Because of Kendall’s
devotion to his family he studied electronics in college and used his education
to become a skilled electronic technician so he could repair TVs. After years of working for the business, TV
repair declined dramatically and the way the business was being operated made
it very oppressive for him. The pressure became so extreme and he finally had
to leave the business which led him to feel hopelessness and real depression.
As
he sought for relief he found that being in nature seemed to help. He was able
to feel part of nature. He saw how nature was always changing, becoming, and
renewing. From nature he saw that there was the process of changing and good
things could happen with effort and faith. He could feel the spirit of the Lord
in nature. It gave him hope. It took Kendall a great deal of courage and
strength to spend a year finding out who he was and what he could contribute of
value to others.
Several
years before Kendall left the electronics business, he had feelings that
“electronics” wasn’t him. During that time he returned to college to study
fine art. He took classes and also
continued to work full time to support his own growing family. (By that time he
and his wife Yolanda had seven children.)
He loved the language of art and it felt part of who he was. He diligently applied and mastered what he
learned. After four years of art school he was honored with the Presidential
Award for Best Artist.
He
decided to find a way to use his fine art training to create a new career as an
artist. He had in his mind and heart a desire to paint his feelings of nature
in its wonderful real detail. He tried traditional mediums but couldn’t create
all that he wanted to express. He felt that possibly there could be a way with
a new painting medium, which would involve the use of Adobe Photoshop. He spent
three years of intense struggle to find a way to get beyond the textbook
techniques of Adobe Photoshop to create and develop his own fine art painting
tools that are far beyond Photoshop’s original purpose. With these tools it
became possible for him to paint beautiful paintings with incredible detail. He
used the fine art principles of the masters with the technology of today.
In describing his
painting work he says, “I am in a computer at a canvas, that canvas is as real
as any out here. The tools are real but they are beyond oil, watercolor, and
acrylic. My palette is parts of this program. I can paint with all the elements
and principles of fine art, but in detail.”
It took considerable
effort to find a way to get these paintings produced in a tangible form. After much research he found out about the
Iris Giclée printer that had a wide enough color gamut to produce all the
colors he had painted. Bringing the paintings to life was not as simple as clicking
"print". It took him extensive proofing for days. It finally worked! Kendall said, “When I saw
the painting the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I shouted, “I
did it! I did it!”
Kendall
experienced a great healing process as he painted his first five paintings and
gratefully named them "The New Hope Series". He discovered that he
had an intense desire to share the healing feelings of hope and renewal he had
found in nature with others. His new art form has made it possible for him to
carefully paint those healing feelings of nature.
Kendall said, “I want people to feel that
they’re standing right at a place, and then I want them to feel the peace, the
healing, the renewal, the assurance, and the hope that nature has in it.”
It took five major disciplines that
Kendall acquired to make his paintings possible. It is rare for one person to
master all of these. He has the creative ability to:
1)
Share stories and poetry with emotions: He was sought after in high school for his writing skills for the
high school newspaper. He studied and became skilled at writing about real
emotions in a poetic manner and has a flare for story telling with a delightful
touch of humor. He has learned the art of expressing those emotions, stories,
and humor in his artwork.
2) Fine art skills: 4 years of college level art
school and receiving the President’s Award for Best Artist.
3)
Professional photography: As a young boy he was fascinated with
photography and started his life-long study of it when he was nine, which
eventually led him to be a skilled professional photographer. He paints with
photo references which need to be very well done.
4) Use of an extensive background in computer technology,
hardware, and software, to create a brand new virtual painting environment.
5) Professional printing skills: To get his paintings in a tangible form
required extensive study of printing methods, calibration, and the skill to run
a large format printer. He affectionately
calls his printer his paint brush because that is how his paintings are painted
on the canvas.
Kendall is a professional artist and
his paintings have sold widely from his own studio gallery and other galleries
including galleries in Jackson Wyoming. He enjoys relating how he personally
met and sold a painting to Tom Clancy, the author. He has painted over one hundred paintings,
each one taking from six months to a year to paint. One painting took as long as four years to
complete. Kendall and Yolanda have
a fine art business, "Kendall Davenport Fine Art", which they have been running for twenty years.
An art
professor from Pennsylvania upon seeing Kendall’s paintings in a Jackson
Wyoming gallery came to Kendall’s studio to learn more about the new way he paints.
After seeing how Kendall paints, he excitedly exclaimed, “This is the art of
the future, real nature on canvas!”
Kendall is the creator and pioneer of this new fine art
medium, which he named “Giclée Painting on Canvas”. His new way of painting allows him to paint
his emotions, stories, and poetry in a powerful manner. Imagine an entirely new
way to paint that makes feelings and imagination paintable in detail. Imagine
the familiar feelings of nature around you as you wander through one of his
paintings and experience hope and renewal. His powerful paintings can bring you
to a new realm, an exciting new place to be.
Kendall’s
new art form is perfect for him to paint the spirit and the feelings of the
temple. It allows him to express the
ultimate hope the temples represent that comes from Christ. With each intricate
part and element of his painting process he paints in that hope, along with the
reality of Christ, His doctrines, and perfect love that can bring you hope,
peace and joy. One sister stated, “When I see pictures of the temple I can feel
the temple, when I see Kendall’s temple paintings I can feel what is inside the
temple.” She could feel how Kendall paints into each of his temple paintings
the warm welcoming love of a kind Heavenly Father and Savior with their divine
purposes that is so powerfully present in the temples.
