Josh Keyes

Josh Keyes

Title: Mist

Media: Paper

Dimensions: 5’x7’x6’

Date: 2008

   Brief Bio:  According to the biography found on his web site, joshkeyes.net, Josh Keyes was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1969. In 1992, Keyes earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Six years later, Keyes received his Masters of Fine Arts degree from Yale and began “exhibiting his work nationally and internationally and has work in private and public collections.”

   Artists/Critique statement: In an online art blog by John Trippe, Trippe interviews Josh Keyes on the subject of Mist, here’s what Keyes had to say about the metamorphosis taking place in Mist “There are certain animals that for me fit an archetypal representation. There is something about the animal, the antlers, the gaze, there is something that I believe strikes a chord with the collective unconscious. It is a stag and yet not a stag, it becomes something more or stands for something else.”

   Background on work presented: According to Josh Keyes web site, this installation was commissioned for a mixed media exhibit by the OKOK Gallery in Seattle, WA.

   How it connects to the theme and why you chose the work: When I think of my paper garden, I think of a vast space rather than a fenced corner of a yard. The presence of this ‘stag’ communicates the wide open space I see in my mind’s eye relating to my garden. It’s just as vast as the use of paper as a medium.