\u201cI owe Donald a huge debt, because he\u2019s the one who recommended Scout,\u201d Womack tells PaperCity. \u201cThe gallery thing has changed so much \u2014 I\u2019d approached different galleries in town and just had not a lot of traction. Donald has a studio across the hall from me at Mockingbird Station, and he said I should check them out. It was right after I did the Spectrum Art Fair in Miami, and they gave me an artist in residency the following spring, and I had a full room of my work for the first time. It was a kind of proof of concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, the Dallas artist<\/a> ended up selling the first iteration of one of his most iconic pieces (a giant 3-D Texas-shaped Texas toast topped with butter) to Park House shortly afterwards. The sly humor and whimsy of that paint-on-plywood piece are inherent in all of the artist\u2019s work. Womack honed his exploration of colorful, familiar objects over years spent as an art director. A Houston native, he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in studio arts before \u201cstumbling into\u201d advertising, a career he continues to work in.<\/p>\n \u201cI found out that being an art director was the perfect match for my skill set \u2014 the conceptual side and the design aspect. I designed logos and ad campaigns. I got to Dallas around 1990 for Tracy Locke and got a job working on Pepsi and grew up as an art director.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, he opened his own firm named J Agency after \u201cshift option J\u201d on the keyboard, which he ran until selling it in 2023. Though he still runs a two-man shop called The Agency Hack, he decided it was time to indulge in his artmaking process. One of his very first pieces \u2014 a giant boombox entitled \u201cBum Rush the Show\u201d (a nod to the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing) \u2014 drew immediate enthusiasm. It turns out his years translating concepts into eye-catching images gave Womack a shortcut to connect with an artistic audience accustomed to the pairing of art and commerce.<\/p>\n \u201cPretty much my worldview is formed by capitalist enterprises \u2014 selling people things they don\u2019t need or want,\u201d Womack laughs. \u201cA lot of the work that I do is similar to the methodology you use in an ad to create a communication that connects with people. It\u2019s no surprise that a lot of the work references the way we sell to each other. The over-the-top nature of the finishes of the piece sort of suggests the nature of selling. I have a piece that looks like one of those chattering teeth that\u2019s about how media isn\u2019t the way it was when we were growing up, it\u2019s now entertainment and flat-out propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Ken](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/TexasToast.02.jpg\")
<\/a>One of Dallas artist Ken Womack\u2019s most iconic pieces is a giant 3-D Texas-shaped Texas toast topped with butter. (Courtesy)
\nKen Womack\u2019s Journey From Advertising to Artmaking<\/p>\n
![\"Ken](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/BumRushCanvas-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>One of Ken Womack\u2019s very first pieces \u2014 a giant boombox entitled \u201cBum Rush the Show\u201d (a nod to the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing). (Courtesy)