Hank Lumen is a weirdwestern painter based in Santa Fe. His cowboys and cowgirls do not begin as figures at all, but as accumulations of seemingly meaningless tones, shapes, and textures. Like spotting a teddy bear in a formation of clouds, recognizable forms gradually emerge from abstraction.

Lumen describes his process as an intuitive buildup followed by decisive refinement: a dense layering of paint that is then pared back with intention. Through this push and pull—construction and reduction—he coaxes riders, hats, and silhouettes from the surface. The result feels both discovered and declared.

Rich with strata, grit, and restless movement, Lumen’s paintings carry a raw, abrasively honest energy. They resist nostalgia, presenting the cowboy archetype as unstable and alive—formed as much from instinct as from history.