Don Keene

Don Keene's paintings are bold expressionistic renditions of a ‘Red Light’ district that lurks in the subconscious. Evading time, place and definition, these vignettes represent a freedom of will from judgment while the colors and lines that portray unabashed passions saturate the composition with frenzied force.
- D. Domick Lombardi

Don Keene is a product of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design and the graduate program in Studio Art at The College of New Rochelle. His concerns with the human figure are less illustrative than they are metaphoric. His abstract accumulations of paint and form investigate the relationships we have with our bodies. The investigative dialogue he orchestrates deals with how and why human experience is confounded by primordial passion and desire within a free society that confuses sensuality, sexually charged imagery, emotive content, feelings of personal tension and self-consciousness, and the role of eroticism and pornography. It is the incongruous nature of this content that, for Keene, is in need of exploration. The resultant paintings and drawings on canvas and paper are purportedly abstract yet feel sexual.
- Will...

Master's degree in Studio Art, College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, New York, 1999

Bachelor of Fine Arts (awarded with distinction), Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California, 1984

2021 Presence, Lichtundfire Gallery, New York, New York - curated by Robert Curcio and Priska Juschka -
one large, one medium and two small figurative paintings - oil on canvas and panel

2018 Where to Draw the Line, OneWay Gallery, Narragansett, Rhode Island - curated by D. Dominick Lombardi - two medium figurative abstractions - oil on canvas

2018 Luxurious Growth, Lichtundfire Gallery, New York, New York - curated by Robert Curcio and Priska Juschka - one medium and one small figurative abstraction - oil on canvas

2018 Color High and Raw Emotions, Lichtundfire Gallery, New York, New York - curated by Priska Juschka and Arielle Mark - two medium figurative abstractions - oil on canvas

2017-2018 Past as Prologue (or The Effects of Modernism on Contemporary Art), Lichtundfire Gallery, New York, New York - curated by Priska Juschka - two figurative abstractions - charcoal and oil medium on paper and found wood

2017 Summer Sex II (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), Lichtundfire Gallery, New York, New York - curated by Priska Juschka - one large figurative abstraction - oil on canvas

2017 Summer Sex I (On the Spur of the Moment), Lichtundfire Gallery, New York, New York curated by Priska Juschka - one large...