Welcome

A few things about me—

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A while back I came to see that art is always contemporary, because it speaks to us in the present and across time and with palpable immediacy.

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My paintings aim to signal something about being alive in the moment of making them. No need to get too wordy and grandiose about this. Just have a look if you like.

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As a child I took studio classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I was taught to make figurines in accordance with classical proportions there. I often had time during lunch to wander around, and was always captivated by paintings: Copley’s Watson and the Shark, Turner’s ship with people enslaved cast into the sea,  Van Gogh’s Houses at Auvers, Monet’s wheat stacks and La Japonaise, and large panels in what were then called the “Asiatic” collections. Sometimes I’d go with a friend over to nearby Fenway Court to get lost in front of Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee. To me, all this seemed at once more real and extraordinary than life itself.

 

I think about that from time to time.

 

Bio, in brief

Norman Keyes received his BA, MA, and MFA degrees from Tufts University, concluding his studies in 1988 at the Museum School. He has held various positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Museum, and Philadelphia Museum of Art. He has a studio outside Philadelphia and some room to make things in Maine.