Elaine Kehew

My work happens in series, sometimes the series is longer and lasts for years, and other times it finishes quickly. I like to go deep into an idea when I can, when it serves the work and helps to uncover and reveal, excavate truth and honesty and lay it bare. Expose it where it was previously covered or hidden. Sometimes these are social truths and sometimes they’re truths about myself, things I want to hide from myself and from others.

Each painting is an expansion of my previously expressed theses. Repetition is a big theme in my work (repeating images with or without variation), the taboo, fake vs. real, labeling, ubiquity, quotidian versus exotic, identity, anonymity, home, signs from the Universe. I am not able to keep my color very quiet and careen off into wild bursts of pigment. My work has a spiritual basis which I am simultaneously embarrassed and profoundly moved by. I used to fancy myself an intellectual.

Painting titles often come from song lyrics or song titles, and I don’t know if this is a cheap appropriation or an homage to another artist. I hope it’s the latter. I try not to impose too much of my own will on a work of art or on a series- usually if I get out of the way of the work and let the Muse guide me, ...

MFA Corcoran School of Art & Design
B.A. Communication & Art History, SUNY Geneseo

May 2022 The Other Art Fair Dallas, TX
April 2022 Finalist-ArtFields Best of Southern Art 2022 in Lakeview SC
September 1-4 2017 Village Market Exhibition Hall, "Hand Painted Pop"
2017 Kenya Art Fair, Exhibitor, November
2017 Art Africa Fair, Cape Town South Africa February 23-March 5
2016 Kenya Art Fair, The Jezebel Project installation, Nairobi
2016 "Chasing Waterfalls" Solo Exhibition, November 2016, Lord Erroll, Nairobi
2015 Group Exhibition, “Paper 2” Circle Art, Nairobi
2015 GIF Exhibition, Johannesburg, South Africa
2014 November Solo Exhibition “Pattern Recognition”, Village Market
2014 Group Exhibition, “Paper”, Circle Art Agency, Nairobi
2014 Group Exhibition , International School of Kenya, Nairobi
2013 December Group Exhibition, Russian Embassy, Nairobi
2013 November Group Exhibition, Nairobi National Museum, Nairobi
2013 Solo Exhibition, Que Pasa, Nairobi
2013 Solo Exhibition, Seven ABC Place Nairobi
2013 Group Exhibition, International School of Kenya, Nairobi
2012 Solo Exhibition, Village Market
2012 Group Show, SUNY Geneseo Alumni Juried Exhibition
2011 Solo Exhibition, Le Rustique, Nairobi
2010 September Naivasha Race Track Horse Show and Fair
2010 May, Arlington Public Library "The...