Steve Keene

Stephen Keene (born 1957) is an American artist who believes in mass-producing hand-painted works of art for the masses.

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He was called the "Assembly-Line Picasso" by Time magazine. He has worked with music acts like Silver Jews, Pavement, The Apples in Stereo, Soul Coughing, Dave Matthews Band, Merzbow, The Klezmatics, on their Grammy Award winning Wonder Wheel, and The Victoria Lucas for music album covers, video sets, stage sets and promotional posters.

Keene studied at Yale University.

From January 20 to February 14 of 2006, Steve Keene was featured at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS to paint artwork for public viewing and to sell his work. According to the Student Union Activities webpage - the program that hosted his visit - Steve says, "I want buying my paintings to be like buying a CD: it’s cheap, it's art and it changes your life, but the object has no status. Musicians create something for the moment, something with no boundaries and that kind of expansiveness is what I want to come across in my work."