I first wrote about Virginia painter Duane Keiser back in 2005, when I noticed his blog, a painting a day, on which he was featuring small, postcard size paintings — one a day as he painted them on a makeshift cigar box easel — and placing them for sale on eBay.
At the time, this was a novel idea, and I don’t think Keiser, or anyone else, could have anticipated that it would blossom into the “painting a day” phenomenon, or that it would help pave the way for a fundamental change in the way large numbers of artists would come to use the internet to connect directly with collectors.
Since then, I reported on Keiser at various points as I chronicled the growth of the painting a day approach, and I’ve also more recently highlighted a couple of his interesting experiments in repainting the same canvas repeatedly (see my links below).
It occurred to me, however, that I’ve been remiss in not revisiting Keiser’s continuing work as a painter, particularly his ongoing posts to a painting a day, which are a continual delight.
You can also see his work on his website, and a number of interesting videos of his process on YouTube.
Keiser has a keen eye for subtle color, a command of painterly textures and a finessed attention to edges. His seemingly simple subjects quietly reveal themselves as sophisticated balancing acts of suggestion and definition, dynamically playing one element against another within a unified, understated whole.
