MINTURN - Pablo Picasso once said he had only scratched the surface on cubism - a 20th century art movement where artists broke up objects and re-assembled them from several different viewpoints. When artist Prent Milhoan's father told him this, it stuck with him. For Prent's exhibit now hanging at Harry's Bump and Grind in Minturn, the 22-year-old painter has expanded on cubism, offering his own creative spin onto the unfinished art movement.

"I get a lot of inspiration from Picasso. I like cubism a lot," Prent said. "I was super bad at math all throughout high school, but geometry came super natural to me. I could figure out angles."

In cubist works, surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, presenting no reasonable sense of depth. Prent plays with angles even more by expanding his paintings' composition from the inside canvas outward with energetic, explosive wooden frames assembled from virtually untouched scraps of wood.

"I don't alter the wood," Prent said, pointing to two slits on a frame where a shop-class student had miss cut. Prent gathers some of his wood from high schools. "The wood really emphasizes the shapes continuance."

Editor's Note: To view a slide show of more of Prent Milhoan's work click on http://apps.vaildaily.com/photos/Prent_Milhoan/publish_to_web/

Sometimes, Prent said, he will plan the frame out, placing the painting on the ground and playing with wood shapes until it's just right. Other times, depending on his mood, Prent will just begin gluing wood on instinctually.

"Then I'll have to rip it off," he said. "But sometimes the mistakes are the best part about a painting."

A lot of what Prent creates is impulsive, and he likes it that way. One of his works at the exhibit, "$2.50," for example, is a mask assembled from found objects. Out of wood, cardboard, rubber, metal and bottle caps he created a face, which is punctuated with extra character by four horns, two of which were shed by real animals. But hanging aimlessly on the side of the mask is a price tag from a thrift shop T-shirt. It reads "$2.50."

"I like random acts of art," Prent said. "I like finding an object that someone else might think as trash."

Masks and found objects are two affections he's inherited from his father, Randy, also an artist, who has a studio and gallery in Minturn. In addition to his dad, Prent comes from a whole family of artists: his mother a photographer, his uncle a painter and a brother who beads and draws.

"My dad's my best teacher that I have had," Prent said, who after a short academic break is looking to return to the Art Institute of Chicago this fall. "Every time I finish with a piece, I call him on the phone and have him come over to take a look at it."

Beside masks and cubism, there are a lot of mustaches in Prent's art, for no other reason than the painter likes the expressive nature of mustaches. Although his artwork is very emotional (Prent claims he's the type of guy to fall in love easily), there is no particular message in it, and it's free of politics - a subject Prent feels has no place in art. His paintings are just pure, random acts of imagination.

"Imagination is your best tool," Prent said. "Your given two lives. The one you're born with, and the one you make. I've always taken off that quote. I'm just trying to make a fun, artistic, colorful life."

Arts and Entertainment Editor Cassie Pence can be reached at 748-2938 or cpence@vaildaily.com.

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