BAC GALLERY SHOP
Keith Emerling
Keith paints and draws from life, photographs, and his imagination.
The first painting he can remember doing was when he was in grade school, his family still has it and he still likes it. The next time he picked up a brush was in college. Keith painted all the time, starting with abstract work, some being diptychs that were 5x7 and 8x10 feet in size. Later he began painting smaller and becoming more representational, eventually painting mostly still life.
Keith painted into his 30's and then stopped entirely. It took him too long to complete a painting, the last one taking six months. At the time, he was already a private chef and continued to work in that profession for a total of ten years. Then he became a commercial and fine art photographer for almost another decade. He came back to cooking for another five years as a recipe creator and author. When I finally returned to painting, I did so with a passion.
He now paints rather quickly, which is very helpful in painting from life, especially when working En Plein Air or with flowers and people. Painting from photographs allows me to capture even the most ephemeral of subjects like food. The connection is more than just with the subject matter, the process of creating results in personal growth and captures evidence of beauty in the world. Painting is full of discovery and is a puzzle of interlocking pieces that eventually reveals a finished piece of artwork.
This process maps the growth of Keith as an artist as well as a person. It is a living connection that keeps him making and remaking himself. In that remaking I hope to discover an aliveness and sense of who I am.
Degrees: B.A. in Fine Arts from University at Albany (State University of New York at Albany, SUNYA.) Undergraduate work at U.C. Santa Barbara, Cleveland State University, and Berkshire Community College. Also completed is one year of non-degree graduate work in painting and photography at SUNYA.
