Andy Kehoe, “Young is the Night”.
Andy Kehoe paints Where the Wild Things Are-esque creatures in stunning landscapes. The animals often stare back, wide-eyed, at the viewer, lending the painting an ominous, eerie, other-worldly feel with dark, melancholic undertones.
Kehoe claims his style emerged experimentally, even accidentally. “I’ve always like fairytales and fantasy comic books,” he says. “All my techniques came from doing a lot of paintings, picking things I liked, doting on them, and evolving them.”
Andy Kehoe, “Cathedral of the Forest Deep”.
Kehoe never planned on becoming a painter. Born and raised in Pittsburgh with his twin brother, Kehoe applied to University of the Arts in Philadelphia, but his portfolio was deemed insufficient for admission; he had to take a summer course to get in. While he initially studied animation, he soon switched to illustration. “Illustration is more practical than art-making,” he explains. “Turns out I can’t draw the same thing over and over with out losing my mind.” He then moved to multimedia. “Every project was me trying to figure out a different medium,” he says.
Kehoe transferred to the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, where he learned how to paint and started using acrylics—but after a year, he left that school as well, this time because of the lack of financial aid. In 2001, he moved to New York and finished his education at Parsons School of Design.
Andy Kehoe, “Appearance of a Sylvan Specter”.
It was there that one of Kehoe’s teachers, Jordin Isip, an accomplished illustrator in his own right, saw promise in Kehoe’s work and asked if he wanted to pursue galleries. “I had no idea you could even show this kind of work in galleries,” Kehoe says. “Jordin opened my eyes to this different world of art-making that I had no idea was going on. He introduced me to a lot of artists that really inspired me. He sent me down a whole new path.”
In 2002, Isip put then 24-year-old Kehoe in a group show, The Panorama Project at the Front Room gallery in Brooklyn. “My first piece sold,” Kehoe says. “I was pretty much hooked after that.”
Andy Kehoe, “At The Edge of an Unknown World”.
Following graduation, Kehoe illustrated for the New York Times and other newspapers, but he continued working on his paintings. His next successful sale, however, came at the price of failure. “I did three paintings—that were a huge step for me, stylistically and thematically—for a show in Brooklyn, and none of them sold,” he laments. Isip took the pieces to Kehoe’s “dream gallery,” the Jonathan LeVine Gallery. Two of the paintings sold right away and the third was purchased a week later. Kehoe’s lesson from that experience was: “You have to take full advantage of opportunities when they present themselves.”
Around age 29, he no longer needed the part-time retail, barista, and restaurant jobs that had sustained him thus far. He now works out of a studio in the home he shares with his wife, who is in a doctorate program.
Andy Kehoe, “Transdimensional Emissary”.
“Pittsburgh is a good place to create art because the cost of living is low and I have a huge space. Those things are hard to come by in cities, especially in New York,” he says. “If I didn’t work at home, we wouldn’t see too much of each other.”
Kehoe, who has always painted on wood, tops his paintings with epoxy resin, a clear, thick substance that adds depth to the artwork. Each piece is at least an inch thick, evoking a shadowbox. He recently started sculpting with polymer clay; he submerges the finished elements in resin and paint, then builds layers around it to blend the 2-D and 3-D effects. Kehoe has also tried putting paint inside the wet resin, then swirling it around for “creepy, cosmic” backgrounds.
Andy Kehoe, “Eternal Glow of the Celestial Peaks”.
The details in Kehoe’s magical vistas are inspired by old trees in his neighborhood, landscape photography, and whatever he finds while browsing the internet. He does not, however, research animal anatomy. “I kind of wing it,” he says of his beautiful and beastly subjects. “In a lot of ways, it makes it more interesting.”
Kehoe, who has exhibited internationally, is cognizant of not falling into a rut. “The challenge is to evolve and keep the essence of what drew people to my work to begin with,” he says. “I want to keep pushing my work. I feel like I can explore different areas and people won’t be too taken aback by it. I have a lot of room to expand it and try new things.”
Eventually, Kehoe would like to do a book or an animated short film with his spooky and endearing scenes. “A lot of times, I see my ideas moving and it would be cool to bring that to life,” he says. “I write down weird stories all the time—fictional, fantastical stuff. I just need a way to tie it all together.”
