AHK — Artsy Scoop

It’s a bird! It’s a…Hollywood Sign! It’s AHK

The gallery in Sundance Square known as Dang Good Candy recently featured the work of local artist AHK, and I had the pleasure of meeting with him and learning more about his life, his work, and his many, many different forays into the art world. We talked about his journey to this moment during a stroll down Houston Street during Fort Worth Fashion Week, before ducking into the gallery when it got too cold and misty for either of us to bear. In that time, I came to know the man behind the initials a little better, and discovered that his show, Signs and Buildings, was just the tip of the iceberg of his various connections to art and artists.

The paintings that hang on the walls at DGC were part of a collection that AHK created over a two-month period, just for this occasion. He’s clearly a prolific painter, one who is able to conceptualize, process, plan and execute at a high level and with impressive velocity. But the work itself does not feel rushed or spontaneous at all. The colors, composition and precision would lend one to think that each individual piece took a month or two to create.

Like it or not, we live in a Marvel world these days, and everyone loves a good origin story. AHK’s beginnings are no less interesting than your typical comic book hero, but his didn’t require any superpowers, just some incredible forethought and wisdom. At 24, he was working at a ‘nothing job’ at a carwash, he hadn’t gone to college, and was just going through the motions, when he saw an advertisement for some property that was for sale about 100 miles west of Fort Worth. He didn’t really have any money speak of, but he knew that owning real estate could be the key to a more stable future, so he drove out to see the property and made an offer to buy it. After returning home, he sold his car to make the initial deposit and rode a bike to his job at the carwash for a couple years in order to pay the monthly note.

Fast forward a couple decades, and AHK still keeps a place in the city, but also has his own private studio in the country. He’s currently renovating it to add some creature comforts and to add a future gallery space. He refers to it as his current art project, now that he’s done with the paintings for his show. He even uses his land for an annual music festival called Novemberfest, which he organized and has been hosting for almost 16 years. But that’s not all, AHK also creates a magazine called OFF WHITE every month (published by Triangle Nonprofit Publishing), and is in the process of resurrecting a monthly event called The Unicorn Club at Post Bar (it was originally supposed to launch in March 2020, but well, you know).

WHITE ABANDONMENT - 2022

Unless you’ve been living in Sweden and attending all night, techno-infused rave parties, you might be wondering what AHK stands for? It’s nothing terribly cryptic or subversive, it’s just the artists’ initials (Andrew Hammond Kendall), but he’s been going by this moniker for quite some time. He told me, “I just got tired of writing the whole this out, and in my early thirties, I decided that that was how I was going to be known. For everything. I sign my checks, I sign contracts, even the signature on my driver’s license is just ‘AHK’.”

Currently, there are only 2 original pieces left for sale at the show, but if you’d like to see more of his work, AHK recommends checking out his website, where he sells a lot of his work (both originals and prints). You can also stop in for a drink at Post Bar, where his work is regularly featured and for sale.

For all of the bold and dynamic choices he made in his studio, which now command my attention in the space run by Jay Wilkinson, meeting the artist reveals a quiet, introspective sort who expresses no desire to be known or celebrated. He tells me that he simply wants to be present in the moment, every moment, and for his work to always be more important than the artist behind it.