ARTIST STATEMENT

Michel Keck ®

The creative process for me is one that is both automatic and emotional. The majority of my abstract works are inspired by the music I listen to. The beat, the lyrics, the emotions I feel from the music I am listening to while I am creating. For me, creating my art is like being on a roller coaster; ups and downs, highs and lows, twists and turns. Painting for me, like life, is constant movement, constant change. The creation process is cathartic, allowing my emotions to spill out onto my canvas as a release.

It is difficult for me to talk about the process of my art. I am not entirely sure why that is but discussing why and how I do what I do has always made me uncomfortable. I think in part it is because to me the creation of art is a very personal and emotional process at least in regards to my abstract paintings which are the majority of my work.

 Attending art shows has always been a bit awkward because the majority of the time I’m dreading answering all the questions asking my ‘why’ I do what I do. It seems most artists love to talk, sometimes in depth, as to what they are trying to convey through their art and what compels them to make it. That is not the case for me. The reality is when I am painting one of my abstracts or assembling my abstract collage & mixed media pieces I am really not thinking, I am just ‘doing’. To me it is a very automatic process, like breathing. You don’t tell yourself ‘breathe’, it just happens. Naturally, instinctively, easily. I do not hold an art degree, nor did I attend any type of art schooling. I am a self-taught artist who has drawn, colored, and painted since as early as I can remember.

Art was an escape for me as a child, it was a retreat for me during a part of my life where I had severe health issues, and it is still a covert for me today. Creating art brings me an internal peace that is hard to describe. Even while working on my abstract paintings, which can be a very tumultuous process that can drag me through a wide range of emotions, it still ends at a place of stillness and quietude.

The most frequently asked question I receive is why and when did I start incorporating scripture into my abstract paintings? This question is one that is much easier for me to answer. When my grandmother, my father’s mother, passed away in 2003 I was given a bible. The bible was given to my father by his employer on the news of her passing and he in turn gave it to me. I was raised Catholic and had opened a bible several times in CCD classes and church but never had my own bible and definitely never really sat and ‘read’ the words. I found such comfort and peace in reading many of the scriptures that I decided to share the words in my paintings. I continue still, 12+ years later, to share the scriptures that speak to me in the hopes that they reach others who may feel comfort from the same words.