Dreams Burn Down 04/30/10 at Rotofugi

Dreams Burn Down
New Works by Ken Keirns

April 30-May 16, 2010

Opening Reception
Friday, April 30, 2010, 7-10PM

"Randy" Sticker!

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A Story About A Girl, A Guy, Me, And Fake Me...

This is a rather disturbing (but also shocking and hilarious) story that has unraveled over the past month or so. I keep talking about it with friends so I figure it's worth sharing.

I received an email from a man asking me if I knew a girl from "The Northwest". Let's just call her "Marge" to keep this tidy. The man, "Frank", wanted to know if I knew Marge. I replied "no, why"? This is where it gets weird. Apparently, Marge told Frank that she was the model for quite a few of my paintings (though, not giving me credit as the artist). Even more disturbing is that she also set up a fake email address with the name Kenny Kelston (k2? coincidence? yeah, right.) and corresponded with Frank as fake me. Fake k2 sent him .jpg images stolen from my site, with the names changed to include her name, to make filenames like "Marge puppy girl.jpg"

What is really disturbing is the creepster persona that she gave me, here's an example from an email that Marge sent as Kenny Kelston. (Note: all the mispellings and typos are from the original)

"And thanks for the compliments. Its nice to hear coming from a guy, as most of the time dudes look at my stuff and pretty much assume I've fucked all these girls. Its not what I see. (of course it would be nice. I won't lie. That would be bad of me. To lie and to have fucked all these girls. bad or BAD ASS.)

"When I paint Marge again, it will probably look different. It is definitely a part of her appeal. She is a different person every time I see her. I have journal'd narratives of the time we spent together that I wrote that explained why each portrait turned out the way it did.

"The portrait of her I like to call 'Marge Van Pugglymits' was the first time I met her. I saw her on the waterfront with Bocci. The she dropped her keys on the sidewalk and when she bent over to pick them up, the wind blew that little blue skirt right over her head. when she composed herself and put herself back together, she flopped down on a bench and laughed her ass off to herself. Having no idea anyone saw that episode, I watched her (from behind a tree because i am a stalker) and seeing her laugh to herself on a bench with that dog, I knew I had to paint her.

"The second portrait I did of her " Green Velvet", she was a very different girl. Dark and unhappy. She was definitely on some sort of a mission. I tried my hardest to catch that. And the monkey is Paul. He likes to make appearances here and there. But I do have a version of that portrait without Paul in it, I believe.

"And the third portrait is my personal favorite. It doesn't have a name. I feel like it might be the saddest of the three, but I really felt like I saw more of her than she ever let me before. And I'm not just talking about her breasts. ( A fucking + man, really. Sorry. But goddamn. And that ASS. *** just because I am an artist does not mean I am gay**** ) I not only loved doing that painting, its probably one of my favorite paintings I've put together yet.

"She was not comfortable with being nude, but with the comprimise of my shirt, she let me paint her anyway. I spent about 55 minutes on her eyes alone. I scrapped three canvases as well. I wanted to get them right. So for future reference, if you ever want that girl to get naked, go ahead and put on The Doors, and she's all your's."

Shiver...
Kinda sad, I guess -- an insecure girl trying to make herself sound more important to others. It's harmless for the most part, and *maybe* I could have taken it as a huge compliment, except:

• It wasn't harmless to "Frank"... the poor guy had lies coming to him from two directions -- her (as her) and her (as fake me).
• The persona that she gives me is absolutely horrific.
• It's really upsetting to open an email and see your work with someone else's name attached and taking credit.
• There was mention of getting prints for "Frank" in a different email. If that's not also a lie, it's really uncool (and quite illegal).
• I don't like The Doors

Dreams Burn Down

Dreams Burn Down
New Work from Ken Keirns

Rotofugi Gallery
Chicago, IL

Opening April 30th: Ken Keirns' "Dreams Burn Down" and Jimmy Pickering's "Beautiful Miasma"
7pm until 10pm.