Arkansas State University faculty alumni and husband and wife artists Brenda and John Keech bring their talents to the Merkle Gallery in April with a mixed media exhibit which features oil paintings on gessoed paper, wooden panels, and canvas by Brenda, and cliché-verres, oil paintings on plexiglas, and light boxes by John. The exhibit opens April 2 and ends April 29, with an artist reception Saturday, April 4, 6-8pm.
Brenda says, “My work is a dialogue of color, line, pattern and surface. It is a searching process. I explore the unknown through continual decisions and responses until a painting reaches a state of simultaneous tension and order.”
John’s work is called reverse-painting on glass. He says, “The images I make are mysterious and unusual. I search for that which has never existed before. The controlled illumination or light box format suggests a scientific and photographic quality.” He continues, “The meanings are up to the viewer.”
Born in Rector, Arkansas, Brenda received her BFA and MA from Arkansas State University. She has received numerous awards for her artwork, including the 2004 and 1998 Small Works on Paper Purchase Awards, the Ninth Annual Artists Competition Purchase Award (Pine Bluff), and the Mid-Western Graphics Annual Purchase Award (Tulsa, Oklahoma). She has exhibited her work in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, as well as in Jonesboro and Little Rock, and by invitation in Conway, Memphis, and Russellville. Juried exhibitions include the 47th Annual Delta Art Exhibition, 2004 Small Works on Paper, 44th Annual Delta Art Exhibition, Originals! Arkansas Women Artists (Sponsored by the Arkansas Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts), Arts in the Park 2000 (Memphis), 43rd Annual Delta Art Exhibition, Abstraction Distraction (Fredricksburg, Virginia), Truth in Form: Abstract Painting in the South (Tallahassee, Florida), Texas and Neighbors Regional Exhibition, 1999 Small Works on Paper, River Market Regional Exhibition (Kansas City, Missouri), and 1998 Small Works on Paper.
Her work is also in the private collections of the Office of the President of Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas; Southeast Arkansas Arts and Science Center, Pine Bluff, Arkansas; First National Bank of Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas; Tulsa City-County Library, Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Allied Telephone Company, Little Rock, Arkansas.
John was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and received his BFA from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his MA from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. He received a Fellowship Award in Painting and Works on Paper from the Mid America Arts Alliance/National Endowment for the Arts, as well as awards in the 2003 Delta National Small Prints Exhibition, the Third Annual Florida National (Tallahassee, Florida), the Tenth Monroe National Exhibition (Monroe, Louisiana), the Central South Art Exhibit (Nashville); the Eighth Annual Arkansas Art Exhibition (Arkadelphia), SPAR National Exhibition (Shreveport), the Eleventh Annual Delta Exhibition (Little Rock), and Arkansas Art 1991 (Arkadelphia). Solo exhibitions venues include the Walton Arts Center (Fayetteville), the Association for Visual Arts (Chattanooga, Tennessee), Kansas City Artist Coalition (Kansas City, Missouri), Broward County Community College (Davie, Florida), 1708 Gallery (Richmond, Virginia), Sun Gallery (Jonesboro), Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, Indiana), Sam Houston State University (Huntsville, Texas), and University of Arkansas at Little Rock. John’s work is in private collections in The Stephens Collection (Little Rock), the Masur Museum of Art (Monroe, Louisiana), the Arkansas Arts Center (Little Rock), Muhlenberg College (Allentown, Pennsylvania), and the United Parcel Service (Greenwich, Connecticut).