CLASSICAL LANDSCAPES
Keith Achepohl's series of paintings and black-and-white soft-ground etchings entitled "Classical Landscapes" differ slightly from his "Egypt: Day and Night" series with its inclusion of more landscape elements. "Classical Landscapes" include architectural objects from cultures other than ancient Egypt and Crete. Since his first trip to Egypt in 1976, Achepohl reaffirmed his affinity for the shapes, colors and textures of the Mediterranean landscape and architecture.
EGYPT: DAY & NIGHT
"Keith Achepohl embarked upon these watercolors after a trip to Egypt in 1976. In Egypt he was struck by the beauty and the power of land, water, and sky, and by the myths and magic behind temples, tombs and obelisks. Undoubtedly the impressions of that stay in Egypt and elsewhere along the Mediterranean Sea helped to shape his visions and to enrich his vocabulary of shapes and colors. The simple and powerful geometry of Egyptian monuments, the clarity of colors, the depth of the blue sky had an effect on him...these watercolors seem images emanating from an unreal world having its own characteristics, a kind of dream world..."
Egbert Havekamp-Begemann
FOREST SEEN(S)
"The inspiration for this body of work found its beginnings while I was fortunate to spend a Morris Graves Foundation Residency at The Lake in northern California in 2011....It was easy to concentrate on a group of plants and began witnessing the cycle from a young green stem growing into a robust maturity, finally transitioning into its final stage as its sleek lines shriveled and achieved a proud baroque character...A single tree could be observed many times, revealing a different landscape in the intricacies of its bark and branches at each perspective..." Keith Achepohl "Vision of Nature|Vessel of Beauty" published by Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art 2011
FOREST WALKS
"I've never been into how healthy the plants are, though I don't mind making it as beautiful as I can, but beauty lies in everything in so many ways. My take on it is a little different from other people's ... Every time I've done a group of work, it's taken about five to ten to twenty years to work out a theme. ... three trees could have produced all of these pictures, just by turning slightly and working your way visually up and down the tree. A single tree can yield all of this." Keith Achepohl
IF IT PLEASE YOU LORD
"EX-VOTO: A RELIGIOUS OFFERING IN ORDER TO FULFILL A VOW" Keith Achepohl's extraordinary collection of Italian silver ex-voto is comprised of culturally supercharged objects intended for individual spiritual communication with God. The votive objects are made of silver, tooled and formed 'into a message'. The ex-voto represents a long history of respect and reverence for 'the sacred body' that has over time accumulated new meanings and connections to physical miracles, immortality, and Christian faith.
Achepohl was attracted to the 'little metal objects' when he encountered them first in Venice and began collecting without directly relating them to his own (printmaking) practice. "The act of creating or bringing visual life to an idea is thrilling and why our 'work' place is the greatest refuge we have from the fractious life we sometimes have to endure. That is not work. When I think about the handmade ex-votos I love so much it is to think that they were not 'work' to make either - they were made with love."
Excerpt from Kate Wagle's book "Keith Achepohl: If It Please You Lord" "Vernacular of The Miraculous", published in connection with Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University exhibition "Keith Achepohl: If It Please You Lord" 2014
Achepohl was attracted to the 'little metal objects' when he encountered them first in Venice and began collecting without directly relating them to his own (printmaking) practice. "The act of creating or bringing visual life to an idea is thrilling and why our 'work' place is the greatest refuge we have from the fractious life we sometimes have to endure. That is not work. When I think about the handmade ex-votos I love so much it is to think that they were not 'work' to make either - they were made with love."
Excerpt from Kate Wagle's book "Keith Achepohl: If It Please You Lord" "Vernacular of The Miraculous", published in connection with Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University exhibition "Keith Achepohl: If It Please You Lord" 2014
LIDO
"Achepohl talks about Venice's famous resort, the Lido - its beaches, the sand, the ebb and flow of tides, the shells retrieved - as the genesis for his impressions.... smaller more personal vistas immediate vision just at one's feet - a few shells just revealed by the last wash of tide or the shallow water caught in a slight depression in the sand... in these small vistas he has captured the transitory magic of the beach for anyone who has spent time at the shore and walked along that delicate juncture of sea and just-firm sand. ... and Achepohl has captured one very quioxotic bit of this tidal world, the kelp .. these images ask you to pause, to remember." David Kiehl, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
MNEMONICS
Keith Achepohl has received honorary doctorates from Pacific Lutheran University and Knox College (1996). Fulbright Fellowships made possible exhibitions and lectures in Egypt and Turkey. Achepohl's own works have been collected in book form and he has provided illustrations for works of others. He has lectured world wide and his prints, watercolors, and paintings are included in museums including the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Library of Congress, Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum, Bibliotheca Nacional, Madrid, Spain, Kobe Art Museum, Kobe, Japan.
NEW ZONE GALLERY EXHIBIT
Current art collections on exhibit at New Zone Gallery. Available for purchase.
POND LILIES
"The numbered, yet non-sequential arrangement of time in Skunk Cabbages, Pond Lilies, and Water Irises belongs to what John Charles Ryan refers to as kairos ("timeliness" or "the right time"), rather than chronos ("time as a grid")... As a form of "vegetal temporality", plant-time is "a multidimensional plexity that embodies the endemic land-based seasons, rhythms, cycles, and timescales of flora in conjunction with human patterns... (i.e.) In Pond Lily No. 5, the difference between a lily pad and an abstract shape hovering in empty space appears arbitrary. Textural variations provide the main clue to this material and existential difference, but the assemblage of forms ensures that any alterity remains indeterminate. It belongs at once to the living, breathing plant, and to a higher plane of existence..." Cory Gundlach, University of Iowa Museum of Art
TREE MAPS
"We all go through life knowing we have a limited amount of time, but we throw it away. We do what we want to do, the hell with the rest of it....I'm not sure what art I'm going to make next, except I did decide that I need to keep working. Working has gotten me through a lot of life. I did those fifty (50) drawings (of Tree Maps) right after they operated on my heart; those were all done from home. I was housebound and couldn't get out of here, so I did the fifty (50) drawings the winter I was recovering. My dining room table became my studio." Keith Achepohl "Vision of Nature|Vessel of Beauty" February 2017
WALL WITH LANDSCAPE
"When exhibited at the National Museum of American Art, Achepohl was making gorgeously colored watercolors from angled, nearly abstract forms that somehow echoed the solidity of classic architecture without literally restating it -- except for openings that revealed an expanse of blue sky, establishing depth and distance... Achepohl does not like his art to be called semi-abstract, but that is what it has been until the recent series of paintings. His expressed intention is to bring the ancient world back to life, and to give us a sense of being at one with it... As an example of an artist whose life is a journey of exploration rather than a one-way trip to fame and fashion, Achepohl is a special treat. " Jo Ann Lewis, Washington Post, April 1987
