Drawings show artist’s inner workings
Corey Keevy’s fingernails are often dirty, not only with grease and oil, but also with colored pencil, ink and charcoal.
Keevy, 43, has a degree in heavy-equipment repair. While he has been turning nuts and bolts for 22 years, he has been drawing ever since he could hold a pencil. “Drawing has always been a great emotional release,” he said. His art education goes no further than one figure drawing class.
Keevy believes that art comes from the soul and is not about right and wrong but about feeling. He has no desire to be influenced or to conform to commercialism. His talent comes from years of practice.
His subjects are classic females straight out of the 1940s and 1950s, because, he said, “they’re more emotional.” Emotions flow from his work, from the traditional portrait poses to the surreal pieces that mix human forms with inanimate objects.
One piece shows a woman emerging from a playing card, the queen of hearts, and another is of a woman appearing to twist in to or out of a bolt.
“I pick up inanimate objects and think, ‘Hey, that would be cool in a drawing,’ like a bolt at work,” Keevy said.
He keeps a list of ideas in his studio in his Rockford home. “I have to get things out of my head,” he said. “Thoughts and ideas for drawings come so quickly. The drawings are a release for my ideas.”
He is working on a piece called “Foundation,” that will be a woman’s face under construction by crane towers.
Keevy also is influenced by good old-fashioned rock and roll. More often than not, he puts on headphones and listens to music while he draws. “I lose all track of time,” he said. A drawing of a cowboy riding a guitar shows man’s connection to music.
Keevy used to do a drawing once every two or three months, now he draws every week.
“I was told years ago we all have to do what we have to do until the time comes when we do what we were meant to do,” he said. Keevy believes he was meant to draw. “I want to bring feelings to people that in some way affect their lives.”
Two years ago, Keevy started CMT Lines and Graphics. He hopes to create designs for clients. His goal is to be published, but he is uncertain of where to go and how to get started. Martha Keevy, his wife of 21 years, does much of the legwork, framing and matting his pieces, and finding venues to show in.
Keevy has shown at art walks in Tacoma and Spokane and will be the featured artist in April at Art and Soul Gallery and Studio at 1610 W. Pacific Ave.
Keevy hopes that his work will force a viewer to slow down in today’s fast-paced world.
“I want them to take a breath and look, formulating what the picture says to them personally. Things that I create are small photographs of my inner person that I do not show. That is what makes this so fun in that people get to see me truly.”