Nothing is Rather Do – Keith Warren Greiman and Martha Rich
Nothing Is Rather Do
Nothing is Rather Do featuring new work from Philadelphia artists Keith Warren Greiman and Martha Rich at Space 1026 on April 5th.
Greiman and Rich met in Philadelphia three years ago through mutual friends in the design and illustration world. After an introductory discussion of the effects of eating too many skittles, they discovered a shared love of the silly and the absurd and have now come together to create a show of mixed media works celebrating this common ground.
Greiman says, “For this new collection of work, I am memorializing objects and scenes that I blindly coast through day after day: a pile of clothes on the floor, a vacant lot down the street, a cardboard toilet paper roll on the bathroom floor.”
All Greiman’s paintings are of objects and things within arms reach and are injected with his humorous and quirky way of observing the everyday world. “I try to approach all subjects, no matter how macabre or heavy, with a good dose of humor. Tears of a clown.”
Since receiving her MFA, Rich has been eavesdropping and collecting words and using them in her paintings. “My art is about what cracks me up and what disturbs me or what is absurd or what is at hand. Social acceptance? No. Self-acceptance? Yes. It’s a lesson in the ridiculous.”
Rich work uses collaged People magazine parts, paints on rejected CMYK screen prints of a rejected painting done years ago, includes silhouettes of friends and strangers and many of the eavesdropped conversations she has collected over the years to create an absurd narrative of life in the modern city.
Keith Greiman Bio:
Keith Warren Greiman lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. His bright and animated images of real and supernatural beings depict life, captured in experience, being ascendant, melancholic and at all times wild. Keith is a graduate of Tyler School of Art.
Keith’s work has been shown in various galleries and publications from all over and everywhere. Some clients include LA Times, Village Voice, Newsweek, the Fader, Ace Hotels, Fantagraphics, the Utne Reader, and Willamete Week. His work has been recognized by American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators and Graphis.
Martha Rich Bio:
Martha Rich lived the typical, suburban life – until she followed her husband to Los Angeles where, just short of a picket fence and 2.5 children her average American life unraveled. To cope with divorce, fate lead her to a class taught by painters Rob and Christian Clayton. They persuaded her to quit the pantyhose, corporate world, leave her human resources job at Universal Studios behind and become an artist full-time. She graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Her commercial clients include Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Penguin UK, McSweeney’s, Portland Mercury, Y&R, Village Voice, Bon Appetit, San Francisco Chronicle, Henry Holt Publisher, and Country Music TV to name just a few. Her work has been featured in the Beck video “Girl” and on the television show “Girls.” A book, Sketchbook Expressionism, featuring artwork from her sketchbooks was published by Murphy Design and Rich’s artwork has been shown in galleries throughout the U.S. and internationally.
She is currently living in her hometown of Philadelphia and recently received her MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania. Rich also teaches at Tyler School of Art, Drexel University and FIT.