JUDY KEENE

Summer brings together the work of Peg Bachenheimer, Kathryn DeMarco, Paul Hrusovsky and Judy Keene, four of Craven Allen Gallery’s most popular artists. Working in a variety of mediums, including oil paint, collage and encaustic, they create pieces that range from complete abstraction to representational and figurative. Each artist pays special attention to the interactions of color and texture in their pieces, manipulating these elements in their own ways.

Judy Keene’s work ranges from expansive color fields to impressionist still lifes and landscapes. Her background as a museum professional has fostered her appreciation for the subtle color harmonies of the old masters. Keene’s palette is bright and deliberate, brought to life by her enigmatic compositions.

Statement

In the late 80’s my husband Jack and I visited the home of Pierre Bonnard in Le Cannet and Henri Matisse’s home and museum in Cimiez, France.  In college I had written my senior thesis with Dr. Shirley Nielsen Blum (UC Riverside) on Ellsworth Kelly who was influenced by Jean Arp.  In the 90’s I painted several views of our pond through the dining room, incorporating the theme of the window as a frame for landscape.  I also studied classical realist painting techniques in tandem with a focus on abstract painting.  Most work I have exhibited has been large scale, non-objective abstract paintings, keeping my interest in post-Impressionism and plein air painting on the back burner.

When I found that my college mentor, Dr. Blum, who combined her Early Netherlandish scholarship with Modernism (she had married Irving Blum, a Los Angeles art dealer responsible for building the careers of some of the Pop Artists and Abstract Expressionists on the West Coast), had written a book “Matisse, A Room with a View”, I noted her essay on “The Window: an Icon of Modern Art” and decided to continue exploring the window as a frame for landscape from an art historical perspective.

About Judy Keene

Judy Keene was born in Texas and loved drawing as a child.  In her youth she visited many National Parks with her family and acquired a love of rocks and rock formations from her father who had been for some years a prospector in the Old West.  She has been influenced by color field painters and the expanse of the landscape in the Western US–one critic described her work as “abstract windows”.

Before becoming a full time artist and raising a family in North Carolina (1979-present) she was the Registrar at the Henry Gallery of Art, University of Washington, Seattle; and Assistant Registrar at the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution.  She also worked as an administrative assistant in the Conservation Department of the North Carolina Museum of Art.  She has studied painting with a number of instructors, has a BA in Art History, and continues to study privately and in workshops with plein air painters.

She and her husband find time to visit museums when they travel abroad for his scientific career and she is able to paint in Normandy while visiting friends.  She has been exhibiting at the Craven Allen Gallery since 2017 where she has had two solo shows.

 

PAST EXHIBITIONS

JUDY KEENE
NUMINOUS LIGHT

STATEMENT

In my new paintings I continue my exploration of the resonance of color.  I first encountered the term numinous in reading the 18^th century poet and philosopher Novalis. He used it as an adjective meaning “a strong spiritual quality,” a sense used by other art historians, and one I feel describes how I try to think about my work—not in a pretentious or religious way, but in the sense that two-dimensional art can sometimes help us find meaning beyond our three-dimensional world.

I work primarily in oils on linen, juxtaposing luminous passages of saturated color with more muted tones.  I paint intuitively allowing shapes to appear and dissolve under layers of pigment and glaze. Using large and small brushes and palette knives I combine forms of opaque and transparent color, layering, adding and subtracting forms, building on the compositions of previous works in a continual search for balance and unity.

While my debt to abstract expressionist and color field painters is obvious, my background in art history and museum work has had its own influence. I experiment with the subtlety of lost and found edges using some techniques derived from the study of classical academic painting.  I am fascinated by the color harmonies of Renaissance painters, have copied old Master paintings in situ at the Louvre, and continue to study traditional figure and landscape painting.  Even with the fine paints readily available, I sometimes grind my own pigments to get the colors I am seeking. The Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki, and his mark making has further influenced my work.

The paintings in Numinous Light are not landscapes in any traditional sense, but they are rooted in a time growing up when I first experienced the power of nature. My father was a prospector of rare and precious metals in the American West and my appreciation of this terrain runs deep.  I define forms in my paintings using calligraphic gestures found in the natural world, whether it is a long-distance view, or an intimate pattern found in an agate. Finally, while I can speak to my influences, the work tells its own tale.

ABOUT JUDY KEENE

Judy Keene was born in Texas and graduated from the University of California, Riverside, with a BA in Art History. She has worked in museums including the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Her previous show at Craven Allen Gallery was named one of the “Top Ten of the Year” by Blue Greenberg in the Herald-Sun–one of two at a commercial gallery. She lives and works in Durham.