Jeff Wegner

Jeff Wenger is a Dallas-based abstract expressionist. He’s lived in Austin, Kansas City, Ft. Worth, and Portland, OR., but grew up in Denver.


“I dig the vastness of the American West,” he says, “the unbounded horizon. I think it’s why I prefer a large canvas.”


Originally a writer, he took up painting later in life. “I needed an immediate creative outlet that was less gut-wrenching than writing. I adopted a frenetic, visceral painting style that is as close as my tin-ear comes to playing jazz. And anyway, I can’t paint horses.”


Wenger started writing based on his experiences in a Vietnamese refugee camp in the Philippines. He was the second best foreign affairs writer in a city that had two. He’s traveled from Hong Kong to Helsinki, Columbine to Kiev. Before and since he’s tended bar, driven a truck, washed windows, worked construction, and been a bookseller. Wenger lives with his wife and ill-behaved dog in North Dallas. He’s studied art with Ron Stever
and Jim Bornemann.