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My work is an exploration of our current environmental, cultural, and political condition and how we are prepared to treat or interact with our environment. Before moving to New York City, I was primarily a landscape painter with a focus on the natural world. For the past eight years, however, living in the city, I have focused more on the human figure, allowing me to address some of the more psychological aspects that a human presence can bring to a painting. My current project is a series of large-scale landscapes with a juxtaposition of natural and man-made elements that are in direct contradiction to one another, such as a giant volcano ash cloud that dominates the composition coming out of a barely-noticeable power plant at the bottom. In other compositions, groups of panicked, Baroque-looking figures interact within their environments, which are essentially battlegrounds between human nature and Mother Nature.
Oil Paintings Watercolors Prints Drawings
© 2012 James Keul