Keefer Bold

The Taos News, Taos NM, August 1979
by art critic, Taos News

Bold prints of Taos scenes by Peter Keefer are on display at Carlson-Black Galleries. Batiks by Katalin Ehling complete the show.

Keefer does powerful work. The colors are not bright, but the forms are strong, the looming shapes of mesas, mountains and moonlit valleys.

Most of the works are collagraphs. A collage is made from bits of masonite cut with a jigsaw. Texture comes from gesso or glue applied to the board. The masonite is inked, wiped and run through a press as an etching would be. The sawcuts do not retain ink, and they become the boundary lines between mountain ranges, or the different levels of the Rio Grande Gorge.

Keefer has done more than 120 prints for his Taos series, including several diptychs, triptychs and multi-panel works now on display at Carlson-Black. Another series is devoted to moon figures, a combination of Indian motifs, symbolism and the forms of items he imagines our civilization would leave behind on the moon.

A couple of ink-on-mylar works are striking, especially one whimsical piece which shows a series of cartoon-like clouds in cartoon frames.

Keefer is a nationally-known artist, and well deserves the fame.