Kurdarius Keyes

Before the Rebloom  

My imagery is inspired by Art Nouveau with composition and iconography influenced by lithographers like Alphonse Mucha; I draw on his symbolic marrying of humanity, spirituality and nature, which is all fixed within geometric and sinuous borderwork. This combinative practice is rounded with my fondness for transformation and physiological hybridity: existing creatures that have been combined or transfigured and the human form married with animalistic adaptations. My work merges these concepts through character driven narratives, depicting recurring motifs of flora species, figures, and hybrid creatures as storytelling tools charged with symbolism. For instance, the lily is a significant floral motif because of how it blooms from a bulb, which stores nutrients for reblooms rather than reproducing seeds for next generations. Elements like these often relate to the characters and foreshadow events throughout the series, especially in terms of death and resurrection.  

I explore these concepts in a multimedia practice, combining woodcut relief prints with direct drawing using conte, charcoal and micron pen. There is also a recurring collage element where I cut into the base prints or drawings and layer hand-made paper overtop or underneath cut areas of the imagery. The dry media is blended minimally, layered with cross hatch and marks, which is overwhelmingly inspired by illustrators like Joseph Christian Leyendecker and printmakers like Ugo Da Carpi whose graphic quality of mark making influences my economy of line.  

This aesthetic seamlessly blends the carved marks of the printed woodcut impressions with the mark of charcoal pencils, creating illustrative and graphic images. The relief ink, micron pen and charcoal intensify value and allows for the colored conte to remain soft and subdued while the paper collage creates lift and depth. Ultimately, these elements combined in such a way exemplify my intentions of unification as a practice and creates closeness with the art through laborious work.