Artist Steve Keene Painting Live on BPL Plaza All Summer

Image via tractor-beam.comIn case you’ve been in or around the Grand Army Plaza on recent weekends, you may have noticed a man in front of the Brooklyn Public Library painting three different scenes at a time on sextuple surfaces. No, it’s not Bert from Mary Poppins or any other public art-executing loony, it’s Steve Keene, the BPL’s very own Bob Ross and artist in residence! Didn’t know the BPL had an artist in residence did you? Philistine!

Greenpoint-based Steve’s actually a fairly well-known contemporary artist as it turns out (Steve Chang of Momofuku is a fan – if you’ve been to Ma Peche you’ve seen his work). His rather unique way of thinking is that he believes art should be hand-painted, but in massive quantities. To date he estimates his total output as more than 140,000 works, and his method is to lay out boards on a wall and add identical elements to each surface in rapid succession. According to Steve:

I want buying my paintings to be like buying a CD: it’s cheap, it’s art and it changes your life, but the object has no status. Musicians create something for the moment, something with no boundaries and that kind of expansiveness is what I want to come across in my work.

If you go to his website and try and buy something, the only option is ‘5 paintings that kind of range from large to medium’ for 30 bucks. He’s going to be out in front of the BPL painting unique works every Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoon until the middle of August, selling them on the spot after each session. Go have a look, tell us what you think, and send in pics of what you buy!  

VIA BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY