ART INTERNATIONAL ZURICH 2010

Pete Keller

Artist Statement

"I want my work to be enjoyable, unpredictable and communicative. For me, the act of painting is an opportunity to question and explore ideas and to experiment with different methods of visual communication.
Recently, I have been making work which brings disparate subjects together to clash or combine and throw up new possibilities, questions or images. For example, in 'Where's that spring?', I brought together an overview of Brighton with a statement about the industrial meltdown. I had come across old, burnt out cars in a field which overlooks Brighton and I wanted to represent the abstract global crisis in terms of the more obvious failure of these broken engines.
I generally work on large scale paper, using fairly fo rmalist dimensions, which give the work the appearance of billboards. I regularly use acrylics and oil pastels, which facilitate working with a high level of spontaneity: The short drying time of acrylics allows me to paint over previous images as the work develops, without feeling precious about what is lost. The 3D texture of the materials as well as the scale in which I work emphasise the physicality of the painting process in which the work becomes a physical representation of a mental world that a viewer can almost step inside.
A driving force behind my practice is the element of surprise. I get a great deal of joy when I'm jotting down ideas and sketching in front of a new canvas, and my ideas for the content or execution of a piece of work develop so quickly that I find myself treading on new territory. I have always worked in a fairly exploratory way; I change themes and content quickly, often within a single piece of work.
The colour and hubbub of the cities I have called my home have influenced the way I paint. The sense of organic development, and the multi layered, improvisational appearance of my work is an embodiment of some of the environments that I have found the most stimulating; such as market places, schools, towns and people-hubs in general. I aim to tantalise the viewer with snippets of comprehensibility in a sea of visual language."
Pete Keller

Copyright: Pete Keller, Brighton / UK 2010