Keith Zudell » About the Artist

I have always been an artist. Art was the only class I really liked when I was in school. Living in a small industrial town I had very little exposure to art. The first real art I remember was from a calendar of modern art that hung in my room. All I remember is the bright colors of the abstracts and the soft look of the impressionist paintings. My mother hated the art. Which made me like it even more.

By the time I was in junior high art was something kids did and I needed to grow up. The little art I made in those years I gave away. I went to college in Chicago to study engineering but I cut a lot of classes. Most of my time was spent at the Chicago Art Institute walking through the galleries. For the first time I was looking at real art painted by famous artist. There was an art supply store across the street were I would buy paint and brushes. I learned to from a book purchased there. When I painted I was free, in another place and time. I still get that feeling every time I paint. I was fortunate to work with an advertising photographer. This is where I learned photography.

After graduation I worked a 9 to 5 job. It took a few years to find one that suited me, well as best as one could. This supported my family but left little time for art with all the other family responsibilities. On weekends I would photograph weddings or other events to help pay for my artistic endeavors. My work would get into shows from time to time. I would sell the occasional painting or photograph but this was not an art career. I knew two things, I needed to do much more to advance my career as an artist. The other, this wouldn’t happen while working a 9 to 5 job.

Sometimes events happen in your life that force you to make big changes. Economic streamlining left my wife needing to return to school for an advanced degree to continue working in her chosen profession. At the same time a physical injury meant I couldn’t work. To be honest I was lucky to still be able to walk. Finally I was determined to pursue my first love. I knew this was the time to go back to school to get my BFA degree. After graduation we moved to Denver. There I taught ceramics and printmaking classes at community art centers. This is were I received my first full time gallery representation showing my ceramics and black and white photographs. My work has been in shows in Paris, Santa Fe, Miami, Gallup, New York, Denver, and Chicago. I have been represented by galleries in Denver, CO, Gallup, NM  Scottsdale, AZ Cheyenne WY.

I now live in Wyoming. I spend most of my time oil painting still life and landscapes. I’m asked what inspires me. I look around me. There is so much that inspires me. The beauty around me. The color yes, I love using color. I want you to feel the energy I put into a painting. The gentle slowing of time of being someplace that is your own world of escape. This is some of what I feel when I paint and this is what I want to share with you.

I know this. I am very lucky to be me. I look at people around me and am happy that I’m doing what I do and this is were I am suppose to be.

Would you like to be part of my journey? I invite you to visit my website. Do you want to become a collector of my beautiful paintings? Art is exclusively for the wealthy, you don’t believe that. Do you? Click here to learn more about my art or becoming a collector of my beautiful paintings. Art washes away the daily dust from your soul. Art enriches your life. It is a gift to yourself that you will enjoy everyday.

 Artist Statement         

  I believe any work of art has beauty when the elements of the composition achieve a harmonic and structural unity. I strive to accomplish this by the brush strokes that I uses in the creation of the painting. I am not striving for photo-realism. My aim is to paint what I see as accurately as I can, and also to communicate an atmosphere of color, light and a timeless feel. I use thick heavy brush strokes to give breath and movement to each painting. Light is used to guide the viewers eye to elements of the painting. Pointing them to selected objects so they may see the common in a new or distinctive way. My struggle as an artist is to always go further in this pursuit, to enriches my work with a look of understood reality but still have a ambiguous element. So that the viewer might envision more than a single interpretation, not just literal or realistic but metaphoric or abstract.

 Like all who might hold a brush in their hand, filled with color and promise, I simple want to create a reality that comes from nothing and takes the viewer somewhere, anywhere out of their normal everyday routine. Even if just for a moment, I want them to feel the color, light, and timelessness in my paintings.

Will the viewer’s interpretations change as the light in the room affects the light and shadows in the piece? Will there be collectors of my work who never understand, but still are drawn to explore? Will people feel changed if only for a minute?

 I often work with thick and heavy brush strokes. I push the paint as much as brush the paint and try to breathe into and out of each moment as I work the surface canvas. Then, as I release my grasp on the brush and stand back, there is on rare occasions a brief and fleeting moment of not recognizing the canvas - as though someone else had just been holding that brush. When that happens, I know I am in that most creative state.

 Then I have met my challenge.