Arts

Keene’s studio is on a quiet street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. A converted garage, it also houses space in the rear where Keene lives with his wife and two daughters. Keene laughs about the set up: “When I started, all I wanted was to have my studio where I lived; now, I wish we had a clean apartment to escape to after a full day’s work.” Keene is a workaholic, putting in five days a week and working until 2:00 a.m. or later on Saturdays. A boyish 53, he has an intense, wiry presence; you can sense the repressed energy pulsing through him and know, though it’s a Sunday and his day of rest, he’s itching to get back to work.

He refers to himself as a conceptual folk artist. His work is kind of outsider, but he’s a knowing participant. He has an MFA from Yale (VCU undergraduate) and while his work is a reaction, a “punk gesture” to the preciousness surrounding the “fine art” such an education promotes, Keene’s cerebral approach betrays the sophistication it also confers.

“I want buying my paintings to be like buying a CD,” he says. “It’s cheap, it’s art and it changes your life, but the object has no status. Musicians create something for the moment, something with no boundaries, and that kind of expansiveness is what I want to come across in my work.” His goal is to make edgy, accessible art that appeals to a broad demographic.

Talia Logan, Gallery Director at Roanoke College says, “I admire Steve for his talent, amazing work ethic and philosophy that everyone should be able to own artwork. I’ve been collecting Steve’s work since the early 90s. He was the first artist I thought of to exhibit at Olin Hall Galleries.”

Keene paints in a large cage of sorts, constructed of hurricane fencing. He has attached wood panels, now thick with paint drips and countless nails, along the inner side of the fencing. It’s all about maximizing painting surfaces; there’s also a two-sided wooden structure in the center, which folds and can be transported to one of the events he periodically conducts at galleries, universities and other venues around the world.