BY KAREN BOSSICK

Buck likes to say he has an alias that allows him to play two different characters—“like Batman.”

Under his given name, he paints detailed realistic portraits of celebrities, billionaires and others, created with brushes with fine points. But, when he wants to let his hair down, he breaks out house painting brushes with which he paints pop icons with big brush strokes and drips.

“Very bold, graphic and colorful. Lots of high glass resin. Lots of fun elements like Lite-Brite Pegs embedded in resin,” he said.

Buck has filled this portrait with delightful kickbacks to childhood, such as the Radio Orphan Annie card.

You can see Buck’s work during tonight’s Gallery Walk at Graham Galleries, 660 Sun Valley Road. The gallery will be open, along with other Ketchum galleries, from 5 to 7:30 p.m. tonight—Friday, Feb. 13--giving people a chance to peruse art, meet artists and indulge in a little wine sipping and other refreshments.

Graham Galleries is showing 10 of Buck’s pieces, which range from somewhat realistic depictions of Native Americans to cartoon characters.

“I feel like a kid in a candy shop I’m so excited about him,” said Gallery Co-Owner Christie Graham. “He does some very fun mixed media made with acrylics and high resin. Some depict cowboys, some Indians—they’re very vibrant pop kind of art pieces.”

Buck did not engage in art while growing up in Texas and Indiana. He developed a passion for it only after moving to Los Angeles where he met street artists who turned him onto Andy Warhol and Basquiat.

Rowdy Rose, which depicts Buck’s use of color, can be seen at Graham Galleries.

He started going to gallery shows and museums and immersed himself in art by moving downtown in the art district.

“I never had a lesson or a mentor. I didn’t go to art school. I just picked up a pencil and started sketching. My girlfriend started showing them to people at her news station, and the reporters commissioned me to paint their family members. I was shocked anybody would want to pay for my art, but pretty soon I was selling my art to corporate collections.”

Buck has had showings in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and even at the Saint Laurent Fashion Show outside the Eiffel Tower in Paris. His art is in the corporate collections of  Bank of America, JP Morgan and others.

He’s never painted graffiti on bridges, but he’s made stickers featuring his art and put them on mailboxes and street signs.

Dora Somosi’s “Mending Magnolia,” a hand printed cyanotype with embroidery, can be seen at Gilman Contemporary.

“They became so popular people would peel them off,” he said. “I found one that had been put on a windshield like a bumper sticker. My art is very influenced by Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jean-Michel Basquiat. I just love the emotional rawness displayed in Basquiat’s work.”

Buck loves the immediacy of being able to slap paint on big canvases.

“I attack the canvas. I like the energy provided by drips, brush strokes. I think about my childhood in the ‘80s when politics and the world was so different. I play with the paint and have fun and don’t even worry about whether someone is going to buy it.”

Buck still has a foothold in L.A. But he made his fulltime home in Boise four years ago after falling in love with Idaho during a road trip through the United States.

Silas Thompson’s “Herefords” can be seen at Kneeland Gallery.

“I decided I was going to take a break from L.A. so I bought a brand new truck and camper trailer and drove all the way to northern Maine, then across the northern United States. My wheel fell off in Coeur d’Alene so I got to explore that area for a couple weeks while I waited for a new tire.

“I kept coming b ack and finally decided to move here—I love to camp, I love the outdoors, the landscape is beautiful and the people are down to earth and nice. And Sun Valley is like this undiscovered little gem with this art community and cool galleries.”

Buck says he hopes his art reminds viewers to relax and have fun: “I want people to have a moment of escape where they can have fun and be free, get rid of the stress and worry and remember life is good.”

HIGHLIGHTS OF TONIGHT’S GALLERY WALK:

GILMAN CONTEMPORARY, 661 Sun Valley Road, is showing “Alchemy of Memory,” the debut solo exhibition of Hungarian American photographer Dora Somosi.  Somosi has constructed a “chosen history” of 25 influential artists, writers and other women such as Emily Dickinson, Georgia O’Keefe and Toni Morrison by photographing trees that remain at sites they once inhabited.

She considered these arboreal portraits and the landscapes they sit in living witnesses, with each hand-printed cyanotype bearing subtle variations reflecting the individuality and impermanence of the subject.

In a process inspired by Hungarian folk embroidery and the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, Somosi has embroidered over the cyanotypes with hand-dyed thread. The blend presents landscape as an active collaborator shaping memory and revealing the beauty found in transformation and repair.

Somosi, who lives in New York, will be present for Gallery Walk.

Gilman also is showcasing the monochromatic silhouettes of Dutch photographer Bastiaan Woudt.

KNEELAND GALLERY, 411 N. Leadville Ave., is presenting a group exhibition titled “Nature’s Palette—Animals in Art” that features both wildlife and domestic animals in a variety of mediums. Featured artists are Lori McNee, Shanna Kunz, Garth Williams, Silas Thompson, Gunnar Tryggmo and Pete Zaluzec.

GAIL SEVERN GALLERY, 400 First Ave. N., is showing the landscapes of Laura McPhee, Jack Spencer and Laura Wilson, as well as the figurative works of Kiki Smith, whose works depict the human condition in relationship to nature. Other featured artists include Hung Liu and Lynda Lowe.

HEMMINGS GALLERY, 340 Walnut Ave., is featuring “Relative Motion,” a group show that examines how artists capture a sense of movement in their work. It will, for instance, feature portraits of Silver Creek, Big Wood Basalt and Proctor Mountain that Frances Ashforth penned in Kohinoor pencil on Bristol paper and gorgeous photographs of Stanley and the Green River in the Wind River Range that Ansley West Rivers took, alongside Thom Ross’s “Winter Ambush” and Ezra Siegel’s “Folktales.”

GRAHAM GALLERIES, 660 Sun Valley Road, is featuring new works by Buck (see above article) and Gretchen Johnson, a local artist whose oil on canvas works reflect familiar landscapes like Silver Creek Preserve, as well as still lives with a twist. She began formal art studies at the University of Washington at age 10 and has exhibitions in galleries in Napa, California, and elsewhere.

SADDLETREE GALLERY, 360 East Ave. in the Courtyard, is showing new watercolors of Baldy, as well as portraits of Silver Creek trout and other images that will resonate with Wood River Valley resident.

MESH Gallery, 4th and Leadville Avenue, is showing Jeffrey Lubeck’s photographs of Portugal, in addition to photographs of the Sawtooth Mountains and other local landscapes.

SUN VALLEY CONTEMPORARY GALLERY, 360 East Ave. in the courtyard, is displaying “Echoes of the Wild West,” with works by Tanden Launder, Max Steven Grossman, Beau Simmons and Russell Young. Also, “Blooming in Color,” featuring works by Hunt Slonem, Cristina Mittermeier and Sage Barnes.

BROSCHOFSKY GALLERIES, 360 East Avenue in The Courtyard, is showcasing the works of western artists such as Russell Chatham and Glen Edwards.