Joseph Keiffer
Traveling Light

Exhibition on view November 17 through December 22, 2018

gallery neptune & brown is pleased to present Traveling Light, featuring recent paintings by Joseph Keiffer. This is the artist’s second solo exhibition in our Washington gallery. Keiffer has exhibited for forty years and has had over thirty solo exhibitions.

Keiffer has a very popular following throughout the United States. Quietly attuned to the rhythms of nature and of the world around him, Keiffer captures moments of the traditional, accessible, and intimate in complicated compositions. In describing his motivation to paint Keiffer has said, “I want my paintings to have immediacy and impact…I think one cannot do better in a painting than to convey a sense of being there. That’s what I find exciting about being alive. Actually being somewhere, being there.” Keiffer’s openness to share private moments makes his work all the more compelling. Like the finest observational American painters, he seeks to translate an emotional experience of the physical world on to canvas.

Traveling frequently along the East Coast between Maine, the Catskills, and his native New York City, Keiffer paints what he sees where he sees it—often bringing his easel and paints with him to paint “en plein air.” Inspired by the Hudson River School painters of the 19th century, he enjoys the challenges of painting from life and capturing both sunlight and moonlight on a landscape or within an interior. Keiffer was raised traveling the world extensively with his mother—a writer—and father—a painter—making him a great observer of his changing surroundings from a young age. In addition to his formal studies at Brandeis University and the New York Studio School, Keiffer attributes his intuitive understanding of painting to time spent closely observing reality. His subjects are familiar yet retain mystery, and are rendered timeless through painting.

Keiffer’s work can be found in the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Bryn Mawr College Special Collections Library in Pennsylvania, and the Pfizer Art Collection, as well as numerous private collections. gallery neptune & brown looks forward to welcoming him back to Washington.