Story and photos by Jeff Kronenfeld, January 2020 Issue.
When Fred Tieken
faced end-stage renal disease, a kind of advanced kidney failure, he started
painting. That might not be the usual reaction to such a dire prognosis, but
Tieken never cared much for conventions. Whether as a musician, record producer
and graphic designer in the past, or now as a painter, gallery owner and
philanthropist, Tieken continues coloring outside the lines. Through it all has
been his wife, Gail Tieken, who is also a partner, manager and literal
lifesaver. In 2011, she gave him one of her kidneys. His first painting — which
hangs in their Paradise Valley gallery but is not for sale — commemorates their
twin surgeries and love story.
Nearly a decade on, Tieken has produced
over 250 paintings exhibited in over 60 one-man shows and juried exhibitions.
Galleries from Germany to Miami to LA have shown his works, as well as venues
across the Valley such as the Icehouse and monOrchid. He still draws inspiration
from real-life events — as he did in that first painting — using humor to cope
with challenges personal and public. The painting “My Fluffy Cat Exploded!” is
a recent example. In it, a flaming black cat leaps diagonally across a
multi-colored background. The incorporation of text is another hallmark of his
playful style. In addition to the work’s title, a sub-feline addendum reads:
“but I’m happy ‘cause he’s OK!” Tieken, a big supporter of animal welfare, said
this was to assure viewers that no cats were harmed in the work’s creation.
A band of young ladies performing at the
2019 Girls Rock Camp Showcase at The Pressroom in June were the painting’s
muses. The Tiekens sponsored the main stage for that event, which was the
culmination of the nonprofit Girls Rock! Phoenix’s most recent weeklong summer
camp. Tieken plans to offer the painting for sale, with the proceeds
benefitting the volunteer-run organization. “I think the concept of that
whole Girls Rock is very unique in a way that it exposes children to
music, and they have so much fun,” Tieken said. “When I heard that song,
it just inspired me to put her words on canvas.”
Other causes the Tiekens support through a
private foundation include the Arizona Humane Society, the Arizona Animal
Welfare League & SPCA, and Rescue Train, an LA-based animal rescue
organization. More than just donors, the couple adopted an abused Chihuahua mix
from the latter group. When they first got Chia, the dog had no hair and
couldn’t walk. Today, Chia is hirsute and healthy as he barks beneath a
Jean-Michel Basquiat painting hanging in the couple’s home. Nearby are a work
by Pablo Picasso and one by Keith Haring. Art is everywhere in Tieken’s home,
studio and in the separate building behind that holds Tieken Gallery.
Opened in late 2015, the gallery is between
shows for the next few months. It currently serves as overflow art storage, a
frequent necessity for the ever collecting and creating couple. Tieken often
integrates elements of collage into his paintings. He sometimes attaches
photographs of items he finds at rummage sales to canvases, or even affixes the
ephemera itself. Inside the gallery, huge paintings hang above smaller ones —
carefully propped against the wall below — which have returned from a recent
exhibition. A rust-colored sawhorse crowned with a hemp-horned cattle skull
stands beside a table topped with spindly robots. The droids are sculptures by
Sabine Meyer Zu Reckendorf, who studied design in Muenster, Germany and worked
as a special effects engineer in Hollywood. She participated in a recent joint
exhibition with Tieken at his Paradise Valley gallery. That show ran from April
28 through May 19. Reckendorf recycles industrial and consumer items into
playful mechanical sculptures. Tieken shared 16 works from his Brainstorm
Series, which he made while recuperating from a stroke.
Temporarily
unable to paint, Tieken photographed patterns such as the many generations of
paint splatter on his easel. He used a computer program to rework the images
into digital collages. For another project not yet completed, he has printed
off scores of faces culled from previous works. His paintings are episodic,
sometimes possessing a comic book-like aesthetic including panels and text
bubbles. This new piece will tie together the many characters dreamed up to
populate his artistic universe. The most prominent of these is Uno, a cute but
somewhat dystopian bird. Uno has appeared in many of Tieken’s paintings, on
stickers, as a human-sized statue in the gallery and may one day even have his
own book. “He’s a GMO [genetically-modified organism] bird. He has one
leg, no wings, but he can skateboard,” Tieken explained. “Now, he’s got
a girlfriend. They’re thinking of having kids, or birds.”
However many adventures may lay before Uno,
they’re unlikely to match the numerous exploits of his creator. Long before he
picked up a brush, he played saxophone as a professional musician and worked as
a draftsman. First as The Freddie Tieken Combo and then as Freddie Tieken &
The Rockers, he toured throughout the Midwest with musicians like Pat Boone and
The Big Bopper. Then Tieken made music that marched to a different beat, as now
he makes art that reflects his enduring sense of child-like wonderment.
At 84,
Tieken is ready for whatever life throws at him because his flank is always
supported — inside and out — by Gail, his wife and manager for nearly half a
century. “We were always different. I mean, I don’t paint like everybody
else. Our music wasn’t like everybody else, but we always seem to
bring in people that liked it,” Tieken said. “So, a lot of hard
work and a lot of luck. You can be pretty out there and accepted, if
you work hard at it.”
