March 17, 1953 ~ Present
Born in Dallas, Texas, the son of a hard working blue collar couple Francis (Scott) Rogers, a distant descendant of Sir Walter Scott and Virgil Lee Rogers of unknown South American Indian heritage . He grew up near downtown Dallas on the east side in the historic “M” streets area.
Early cultural influences came from his mother Francis who had a cousin who played in the Dallas Symphony and early on in his life V. Les Rogers would attend the symphony with his mother with free tickets supplied by her cousin. While still in elementary school they would take Sunday trips to the Dallas Museum of Art and so his first exposure to original fine art came from those experiences.
His father Virgil had creative skills and would sketch in pencil, carve objects and sculptor with simple clay.
His influences in his teen years were from the former generation of Modern artist who used bold colors to express themselves. Artist like Pablo Picasso and his irregular non-proportioned shapes and bold colors; and the first time he saw “L’HOMME INFINI” by Man Ray, the bright colors of Joan Miro, the rounded, simple and yet profound shapes formed by Georges Braque, the influence of Cubism and Arthur Dove and Marcel Duchamps’ Dulcinea.
Like many teens of the hippie 70’s he was exposed to the poster prints of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” and was reinforced in his idea of using bold colors as a signature style of his work.
Today you will take notice of his constant use of round and circular shapes within shapes, impregnated lines that swell disppaportionately, the use of black to silhouette against the bold primary colors of the pallet.
By conscious or unconscious decision many of his primal images are sprawled awkwardly across the canvas, conceived in heavy handed brush strokes and lay bare, exposed to the world around them. His impulse is to express what is inside him led him to pick up the paint brush in his teens and paint on canvas his raw feelings about passion, despair, love, hate, remorse happiness and the natural flow of this energy in and out of his life.
It is that spirit that V. Les Rogers captures in his work; like its creator it is influenced, it is self- taught and it has emerged for all to see.
He is considered one of the top self taught artist to emerge from North Texas and definitely one to follow. He makes you a believer in the fact that the creations of the untrained artist cannot be separated by range, quality or impact, from the professionally trained mainstream of artistic achievement.
The artist signs all of his paintings using the initial of his first name : “ V. Les” to honor his late father, Virgil to whom he attributes all of his natural creativity.