Jan Keeling

I love seeing the beauty and mystery in everyday things, especially the way light and shadow point up the magic that is always there, but that we sometimes miss. A little girl is dressed up for a costume party. She hopes she looks beautiful, but she doesn't know just how beautiful she is. The lovely humanity of her face is in shadow, but it is still lovely. The sparkles in her wig mean at least two things: 1) They are there because she thinks they make her beautiful 2) They are there because you can find magic and beauty in every part of life.

I have chosen to become a serious oil painter after a career as an editor of children's books, gardening books, and academic papers. Creating realistic paintings in oils is how I communicate best with others who find the visual world stirring. A realistic painting can use the visual world to answer questions. What do I feel? What do I see? What will someone else see in what I paint? Can I communicate a kind of truth? And, eventually: where does this truth originate?

Most of my paintings are of female children, simply because my own children are girls. I spent years keeping an eye on them – the practical goal was to ensure their safety; a welcome artistic byproduct was to witness such beauty and poignancy that what I remember from those years forms the lion's share of my life's visual memories.

A young girl's face, although it is in shadow, is luminous with youth and innocence. A very young child, dressed in a young child's "finery," is looking through a window at . . . something . . . in the light. The elements of these images are laden with emotion for me, in quite mysterious ways. I paint because I do not understand. I love, but I do not understand the ground of the love. Illuminating light bumps up against the most shadowy mysteries.

Jan Keeling
email: jkeeling@comcast.net