Treasures from Our West: Prairie Rattler by Don Coen

Originally featured in Points West in Summer 2012

Don Coen’s Prairie Rattler painting

Artist Don Coen embraces the forgotten beauty and reality of life in the American West in his oversized canvases. In Prairie Rattler, viewers come face to face with an eight-foot wide rattlesnake poised to strike. Like many westerners, Coen had his fair share of encounters with rattlesnakes while growing up on a farm in southeastern Colorado. The threat and danger associated with rattlesnakes typically conjures images of an ugly creature, but Coen encourages viewers to take another look, “If one truly looks closely at a rattlesnake you see what a magnificent creature they really are.”

For his painting technique, Coen uses an airbrush to apply thin layers of paint to the canvas to achieve a photorealistic style, capturing the details of the skin, shine of the eye, and reflection on the black tongue of the snake. However, as the viewer moves close to the painting, a soft focus dissolves the snakeskin into a pattern of texture, color, and shape.

Don Coen (b. 1935). Prairie Rattler, 1981 – 1982. Acrylic on canvas. Gift of The Alexander Bodini Foundation, in memory of Alexander Bodini. 10.11

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