Blues Band

From the Artist

Speculation is the only way possible for me to indicate why I follow one direction or another. Happenings on paper or canvas are predictable up to a critical point for me. Beyond this, intuition and instinct take over. I only know that any verbal statement can only give vague clues as to why I pursue a certain direction in working and thinking. For me the subject matter simply becomes a vehicle used to help discover the mystery. Then the idea becomes the mystery that must be made real; it is the means by which I render some of what I assume I know with the unknown. I hang on and take the wild ride.
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

My style is how I see things, how they filter through you. I paint intuitively. I can’t plot and plan…it’s all in my head and it depends upon the color and then I get a big idea of what I’m supposed to do and then I try to do it. If painting your art makes any sense, then it has to come out, and sometimes you wish it to come out with much more enthusiasm or from much more excitement than it does, but you have to be proud. After a certain point, it’s putting this together, and you just plot and scrape away…you either throw it away or it leads you to a new idea. So, you start a new canvas, or you take all of that out, but one little place that works, then you start again.
_{—From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz72bw0kOoo, accessed 6-25-2021}

Blues Band pays homage to blues music, which originated in the Southern Mississippi Delta early in the 20th century to express the joys and frustrations of African American life during this period of racial oppression. In Keene’s print, each musician is given a halo to signify the spiritual nature of the music and showcase the individuals in an angelic light. The artist arranged the musicians across the picture plane to give maximum visual importance to their act of playing and to establish a formal visual relationship that forms a circle tying all the players together. Keene uses colors, layered one over the other, to create a physical space which suggests that the musicians are floating on air. 
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}

Through deeply personal pictures Paul Keene brings together the painter’s visceral love of color with the mystery of memory and the subconscious mind. Mr. Keene is a quiet man who chooses to speak with line, shape, and—most passionately—with color. Always avoiding the didactic, he gives us hints and suggestions, then leaves us to discover our own meaning in his work.
_{—Bruce Katsiff, from https://bucksco.michenerartmuseum.org/artists/paul-f-keene, accessed 6-25-2021}