Joseph Keiffer: WANDERLUST
On view May 1st – June 12th, 2021
gallery neptune & brown is pleased to present WANDERLUST, our third solo exhibition with Joseph Keiffer. His practice of acute observation has brought together two very familiar realities over the past year; one, the strong desire to travel, also known as wanderlust, and two, the heightened relationship between ourselves and the objects in our homes.
Keiffer continues to bring life to everyday, intimate moments in the paintings selected for this exhibition. His desire to convey a sense of “being there” takes on new meaning as an artist living through the covid-19 pandemic. From intimate moments - such as how the sunlight illuminates the view from a window to escapist visions of the Santa Barbara coastline or a village in France -- Keiffer paints “en plein air” and then patiently completes them at his easel. As his friend Burton Silverman described, Keiffer “[animates] our emotional experience of the physical world”. Keiffer recreates that slippery sense of being present.
The son of a New Orleans artist and trained at Brandeis and The New York Studio, Keiffer brings unbelievable beauty to his compositions. He honors the skills and techniques of the Hudson River School and the generations that followed with his contemporary landscapes and still lifes. Despite the limits placed on his practice due to Covid-19, he continues to take us on journeys throughout the United States and Europe. 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 showing Keiffer’s paintings in Washington once again.