The Message is in the Mark (2007)

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Before I get into my own work, I would like to talk about the VSA (VSA International Art Program for Children with Disabilities), it is a very valuable resource. It cares about the visual and performance on the state, national and international level.

It not only promotes individual as artist, put also makes the artist gain confidence in their selves and their work.



It has been said before my art is my own language as myself portraits. I call them my visual diary, by the color and the way the paint is puts down you can tell my emotions at the time.


During my graduate work I have been develop my own iconographic language for living as a disabled person. I have also been painting about some of the daily situation that I come across.


My goal here today is not to make you see how conceptual art can be. Rather to make you think art is a way of expression and how accessible it should be for the disabled and used as a form of communication. The problem is that people think art needs to representational, or done with certain medium, or technique. You can ask any art historian and the will say art movements are dead and anything goes.

Take my painting; I used to only use my headstick to do my work. But lately I have been painting the background by my hands. This allows my to be more gesurual. So now the emotion is not only achieved by color, but also by the marks that are made by my “uncontrollable hands”.

I not only use the brush in my hands, but some times glove up and move the paint with my hands. A few of my professors have suggested that I go abstract, but I feel that I need to have some narrative to my painting.

Art is about solving problems; the problem is not only about what to say? But also how to say it, what medium, what tool? The disabilities have a lot to contribute the world’s culture, but it is not a social priority.


Another way that I discovered to put more emotion in my drawings is to put up layers. Yes, is my professor who come with the ideas of how to improve my work, I am the one to find how execute them.


It is hard for my to use the long side of the pastel, so I decide to keep the piece that got too short to tape onto the headstick. I crush these pieces right on top of the paper and blend them in to my desire.


The last indever I would like to let you know about is my exploration with clay. If anyone said I would be working in this medium everyone would have laugh at him or her. I was lucky to meet the right professor that would hear out and show me the option to produce what thought up.


I hope this has given you some new prospective about art. Maybe now you know a friend, or client that needs a way to release their inner emotion and this has given you a different approached to a solution. M I you have any questions my email is: dank@kinggimp.com.

PUBLIC/PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS

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It might be a contradiction that I have a heavy presence on social media, and I do not know what I ever did without text, but when it comes to one on one communication, I have always resistance using ACC Devices. Technology is meant to enhance our lives, not be a substitute for human touch. For example, the mythological third arm that people always spoke of for an eternity, now this has become to be reality with the use of voice control. Does it have the same connotation as walking/rolling across the room to turn the light on for someone?

As art and technology merge, how do I keep my voice from disappearing that is what I was mostly concerned about as I turned to digital media. My mark making in my artwork is my language, this lets the viewer see my thoughts without having an interpreter between us being, human or electronic devices. No matter whether I communicate by voice, or art there is an intimacy that creates an unexplainable bond with me. I might talk with thousands of brush strokes and words, but it only takes one to feel my passion.

Be Thankful Obey Me, 2002	Legs	Just Another Night Out
Closest	Ears Up	The Dan Turbulence I
500 quadquilith time	My Gate Way	Yaaaa
Free Past	Good & Evil	Nurture
The Winndow	Beastly	The Real Fear
Bondage of Liberty	No	My Precious
	Awareness VS Activist

The Artist's Mind 2020

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September 3,
What is happening to the arts when school are not running as normal? I encourage all parents to have an Artist corner at home, with ton of art supplies and musical instruments even it is dollar store stuff. Please, please do not worry about them staying in the lines or filling up the page. I mean are adults staying in the lines these days.


March 22,
Dozens of Museums and Libraries Offer Free Downloadable Coloring Books
I bet I could do this with my own work, just simplify the palette and make a line selection on each layer to create the outlines. Do I really want people to fill in the blanks, or use my art to inspire them in creating their own language of expression.


--more--

Role Models

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Here is my latest piece in progress: Chirsty Brown, he was the main character in the film “My Left Foot”. The film came out when I was a sophomore in high school and I also wrote my senior thesis on him. The movie focused on Brown as a painter, but in Ireland he was better known as a poet. The art was the reason why my art teacher suggested that I should go see the film, plus the CP thing. So my friend Laura and I went to see it at the Senator Theater, it was the first film I liked that was about someone with a disability since it was not a pity party. I mean he was a freaking Irish mon, I did like how the movie showed him carrying a bottle with a straw in his inside coat pocket. I would not call him a role model, just a person of interest. I have never been the type to collect role models, you only see what the media wants you to see. This would also include myself, we all are human and have friends with stories.

The first Christmas that Dena and I were a couple, we watched “My Left Foot” together as she made the popcorn strings for the tree. I did show my ability to ”make” Microwave Popcorn myself, without burning it, or me!

Disability and Visual Culture

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My name is Dan Keplinger. I was born with Cerebral Palsy and I have been painting since I was 16 years of age. Many years ago (2000), I was the subject of an Academy Award winning film entitled King Gimp filmed by William A. Whiteford and Susan Hannah Hadary, and was written by me was made about my life. It showed my struggles, especially my desire to become an artist. I feel that my life with a disability and my mainstream education as an artist has allowed me to explore the disability visual culture from both vantage points, those of an insider and outsider.

I had my first gallery show at the Phyllis Kind Gallery in New York City in 2000. I have had two additional solo exhibitions since then at the same gallery. (Figure 1.) This portrait was done during my Senior year of high school, when I was experiencing a lot of turmoil, like most other teenagers. My first solo show consisted of mostly self-portraits, but they were done in away that was not expected from a person with a disability. They were dark and thought provoking; the viewer could see that I tapped into raw emotions.

When installing this show, Phyllis took into account that I was in a wheelchair and that this fact would attract other wheelchair users to her gallery. So the paintings were hung at eye level for people in wheel chairs, rather than the usual 60 inch midline. Many people with disabilities came to see the exhibition.

A few years into my art career, I began to have problems with my feet that kept me from working on my art for weeks at a time. Since I produce my art kneeling on the floor, my podiatrist said a permanent solution would be foot surgery. I put it off until 2004 for fear that it would change, or end how I produce my work. However, this fear has led me to new imagery. I started to re-invent my visual vocabulary. For example, I began to morph my foot into the front wheel of my chair. My current work is comprised of both painting and printmaking and in these concurrent bodies of work I explore this new foot/chair iconography (Figure 2.). Also the idea of the places I cannot physically get to, would they be better places or not?

Also, during this time I had to switch to a new doctor who did not know anything about me, or my success. She suggested that I try drug therapy to help control my movement. I refused to take the medicine because it would not only have changed who I am but my artwork as well. I am happy with who I am and what I am able to accomplish. My ability, the way the world perceives me, and the unique way in which I produce my work are an integral part of my artistic identity and vocabulary.

My work is deeply personal. Everything I create is an attempt to convey my experience to the viewer. I want the viewer to understand my physical as well as psychological experience in the world. I might paint a wheelchair climbing a set of stairs in an attempt to reveal some of the physical barriers I encounter in everyday life. In other words, I incorporate the image of a chair, which I anthropomorphize by giving it hands and feet. This image is meant to impart some of the psychological aspects of my life. Most people upon first seeing me do not see me as an individual but rather see only my chair. Although my work is about my own experience, I feel that it deals with the challenges in life, which can be experienced by anyone, regardless of his or her physical or psychological realities.

In the painting Who’s Town 2006 (figure3.), I become the architect of my own town, to make it more conforming to my needs. Everyone always talks about taking control of their lives, they should be disabled for a week. Then they would really get since of lack of control.

Maybe to Me Digital Art is As Air Sex,

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Canon just stopped selling its last film camera

This is the end of the the era, because this means schools will stop teaching photography using film and all of the good stuff that comes with this medium.

Although, I too do more digital stuff now, it will never replace the feel that comes with older mediums. In the digital age of art the possibilities seems unless, but I do feel a disconnect from my work. When I paint, or draw I become part of the piece. The canvas and my body the absorb the some colors, my DNA is left on the canvas. If not from scraping my knuckles, it's my sweat and drooling. Really this is how they will identify a Keplinger, not from a signature, but from DNA.

Maybe to me digital art is as air sex, it's fun and safe, but does it have soulful connections?

Original Photo-Litho Prints

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4/6/93

Dear Wheelchair,

Our relationship is love and hate. I hate you because you have to be so picky about where you can take me. I love you because you save my knees from getting tired and sore.

I know you hate me because how I treat you. You probably think you are unlucky to be my wheelchair, I always put you in trunks of cars, under buses, in dark closets and take you camping. You would probably like to be somebody else’s wheelchair where you sit at home. Think how adventurous your life has been.

Yours,
Dan k.

P.S.

Wait until we go bungee jumping!

My Precious 2008	Good & Evil 2008
Nurture, 2008	No, 2008

Lobby

Dan K. - King Gimp Gallery

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September, 22 - October, 20 2020

TU Art + Design, Art History, & Art Education invite you Dan Keplinger, King Gimp PUBLIC/PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS Twenty years ago, the Oscar Award-winning film, “King Gimp,” leapt Towson University alumnus Dan Keplinger (BS'98 & '03/ MFA ’07), an artist with Cerebral Palsy, into the spotlight. In recognition of the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, TU, in partnership with Towson Town Center, mount an exhibition of his work. Keplinger uses head gear to make his art in various mediums. He does not use voice technology to speak, but by the subject of his daily life and the objects of his daily existence, Keplinger uses his art to send a powerful message.

The Phyliss Kind Collection	My Wheelchair's Ego	A Story With No Words
2014 Mono Prints	Original Screen Prints 2014	2014 Drawings
Drawings 2015	F Keeping Calm	Paintings 2014
	1990's Paintings

Through school Dan participated in many Art Department shows. In addition, his work was shown all across Maryland sponsored by Very Special Arts. In 1993 he was the Very Special Arts featured artist in their show at the U.B. Blake Cultural Center in Baltimore City. From 2000 to 2014, Dan is exclusively represented by the Phyllis Kind Gallery in SOHO, New York.
Dan had his first solo show in May of 2000. He has had work in several shows across the country including 2001-2002 eMotion Picture, An Exhibition of Orthopedics in Art. San Francisco, CA Herbst International Exhibition Hall at the San Francisco Presidio, Washington, DC Millennium Arts Center, Chicago, IL Chicago Cultural Center, New York, NY United Nations, United Cerebral Palsy Great Expressions art show 2000 and 2001, Towson and MD Sheppard Pratt Conference Center.
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