“I paint what was missing.”

I create art for myself. Art is a form of therapy that I use to heal myself from the scars of society. I paint what was missing. As the artist, I tell stories of the forgotten, the hidden, and what should have been.  

Most of my inspiration for my work comes from photographs I find, often of long forgotten people who no longer have names. I recreate these images and allow them to return and continue on with their story.

The medium I use for my paintings are encaustic wax and gouache.

Even thought my educational and professional background has been in business management. I have always felt the artistic call. Deep down, I knew I would have an artistic journey, but it took years before I discovered what that journey would be.  I started with fused glass and have worked in fused glass for over a decade. You can see my line of glass bow ties at glassbowties.com.

I started working in encaustic wax as a form of mixed medium simply from seeing works in galleries and wanting Painting just happened.  to figure out how it was done. Reading and online videos were my teachers. I took the plunge and just played. Next thing I knew, I was being asked to teach classes and selling my encaustics mixed medium creations.

Painting just happened. I have always wanted to paint but never picked up a brush. Then the Covid pandemic hit. When the world closed, I knew I would need to do something to calm my soul. I challenged myself. I told myself I would learn to paint. I knew I wanted to create something personal and meaningful. I thought about my life and the challenges I have faced. I decided to create the representation that I missed growing up. I wanted a world where there was a positive representation of the LGBTQ+ community and to bring back an appreciation of the male form. A world of no shame.

I felt comfortable working in wax and decided I would use encaustic wax as my painting medium. Over the next year, I would paint 100 portraits, mostly of males. The inspirations of my paintings came from photographs I found online. From this, a true artistic journey happened: I painted what I felt I needed to paint. I painted what my soul told me to paint. 

After encaustic wax, I started working first in watercolor then finally settling on gouache. I love the bright colors of both encaustic wax and gouache. It elevates my stories.

I am self-taught, and I have no formal training. I have learned to just explore and play. The key to art is to have no fear, just create.

Keller