Keith Jentzsch

There is conceptual purpose to the art making practice when it is grounded in discovery and constantly challenges what is expected. Insatiable hunger for a new awareness acts as a bridge between a desire for continuity and what can often feel like a fragmented existence. In moments of knowing, moments of uncertainty, sudden crescendos and periods of flatness, the studio practice becomes a forum for extracting fresh ideas and perceptions that can revitalize the common place and link the fluctuating qualities of life. I am engaged in the process of making as organic and related to a life experience. Content and concept act as a primary influence on formal decisions and my work may drastically shift according to one idea and/or intention at any given time.

Primarily, I am interested in welcoming a certain discomfort (what seems wrong but feels right) and finding a middle ground between logic and immediacy. Driven by the idea that art should be laden with the impossibility of absolute reconciliation, I believe something should linger after the work is seen, maintaining the unknown and openness that leans toward unforeseen possibility. This is the primary goal, purpose, and responsibility of art.

I am currently working on a collaborative project that utilizes a 1998 Ford Econoline panel van as the canvas for multiple ideas that respond to issues of sustainability in economics, the environment, among the working class, the housing market, etc. My focus is not to provide a directive toward specific solutions but rather host a forum for contemplation that seriously questions the typically polarized approach toward solving contemporary problems. I believe that to successfully address these issues I must acknowledge an overwhelming sense of absolute fragility and tension.