Immortal Portrait #4 Collage

b. 1968. Keith Perelli’s figure-based narratives fuse illusory realism, abstraction and naturalism. His work most often focuses on the social, political, sexual and environmental proclivities of man. His fascination and research of figurative art, observational painting and biology imbue the work with moments of tangible clarity within an otherwise complex tapestry of linear drawing and his penchant for the abstract mark. Perelli renders his figures as though they were stripped, dissected and inextricably woven into environments of their own making. His figures dissolve into space sometimes rendering them limbless, thus compromising their stability while amplifying their vulnerabilities. He intentionally interrupts space with lines, flat shapes and the physicality of the collage materials to remind us of the surface as though it were a façade of our projected psyche. The environments are perhaps just as telling of the mood and gesture of the figure as the subject itself. This duality, further adds to the ideas explored in his work that play more to presenting a narrative psychological dilemma than resolving one or being didactic. Perelli says, “One of the biggest challenges of my work is knowing when to edit, before I expose every intimacy of what I find captivating about the subject.” For the past five years he has investigated the monotype process as a source of inspiration and challenge to his experience as a painter. He is interested in this particular printmaking technique due to its ability to record and transfer the near photo exactness of natural forms and the textural nuance of each painterly mark. As a lover of all that is beautiful and cruel in nature, Perelli sees the potential of using actual organic and man-made environmental detritus as both mark-making tools and objects in themselves. His creations therefore require a certain willingness and participation of the viewer to find links between our behaviors and environments of which these actions were influenced.