Keith Breeden, RP

Date of Birth

25th March 1956

Profession

Artist

Status

Married with three children

Member, Royal Society of Portrait Painters

Welsh language learner since 1990

1974-75

Corsham, Bath Academy of Art

1973-74

Northwich, Foundation Studies

1967-73

Hale Barns, St. Ambrose College

1962- 67

Northwich, St. Wilfred's Primary

1996-Present

Artist. Commissioned and non-commissioned work in oils, water-colour and drawing media, metal, wood and mixed media. Visiting lecturer Coleg Powys. (May 2000) Carved wooden Bench Llanfihangel Millennium Committee. (Nov 98) Artist in residence Coleg Powys. GNVQ Art and Design drugs awareness campaign in conjunction with Powys Health & Dyfed Powys Police. (June 98) Mural on the theme of Melangell with children of Ysgol Llanfihangel and local people. Funded by Calouste Gulbenkian/Festival of the Countryside. (June 97) Four part mural with children of Ysgol Llanfihangel. (June 96) Workshop leader Arts Connectin/Powys County Council. Drawing, painting, design, mask making and sculpture with children from local primary schools. Work shown in town carnival and Eisteddfod. Video interviews with 200 children.

1986-94

Artist/Designer. Set up DKB studio London in 1986 employing staff of 4. Worked mainly in the music industry designing record sleeves and associated marketing and merchandising campaigns (Bryan Ferry, Pink Floyd, Fine Young Cannibals, Alison Moyet, ABC, Scritti Politti, Sony, Virgin, Phonogram, EMI etc.) Also corporate identities, book, magazine and poster design, illustration, 3D design and making, cartoon strips (EMAP, Palace Pictures, Link House, Greenpeace, Paul Howie, etc.)

1979-85

Artist/Designer with Malcolm Garrett at Assorted Images, London. Designs for the music industry (Duran Duran, Culture Club, ABC, Scritti Politti, The Cult, Virgin, London, CBS, Radar, Dindisc, EMI, Phonogram etc.) Book, magazine and poster design (Eel Pie, NME, New Sounds New Styles). Corporate identities (London, Partisan, Carburettor Centre). Illustration and cartoons (NME, Bike, Superbike etc.)

1976-78

Artist/Illustrator. Rolling exhibition Guilders Gallery, Bath. Designer/Illustrator (Gallery Five, Christian Aid, Global Village Crafts, Castle Cary Press etc.)
Casual Work: Gardener, gravedigger, forklift truck driver etc.

Sir Brian Smith
Vice Chancellor Cardiff University

Malcolm Thyne
Headmaster Fettes College

Sir Dominic Cadbury Chairman
Cadbury Scweppes

Professor John Cash CBE
President Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh

David McMurray
Headmaster Oundle School

Major Geoffrey Crook
Controller Royal Pioneer Corps Association

His Honour Judge Humphrey Lloyd QC

Major General G W Field CB OBE
Resident Governor H M Tower of London

23 Pioneer Regiment RLC, Bicester

Mercedes Benz, Stuttgart

Severn Trent Water, Birmingham

Fink Floyd, London

2000

MALL GALLERIES London Royal Society of Portrait Painters

KALENDERSCHAU 2000 Stuttgart First Prize Kodak Fotokalender - Preis 2000

MALL GALLERIES London/TRAVELLING Peoples Portraits

1999

MALL GALLERIES London Royal Society of Portrait Painters

1998

MALL GALLERIES London Royal Society of Portrait Painters

ORIEL 31 Newtown Annual Open Exhibition, Highly Commended

Y TABERNACL (Museum of Modern Art Wales) Machynlleth Annual Open Exhibition Highly Commended

LLYN EFYRNWY Powys Sculpture Trail funded by Severn Trent Water

1997

Y TABERNACL (Museum of Modern Art Wales) Machynlleth Joint Exhibition

1996

Y TABERNACL (Museum of Modern Art Wales) Machynlleth Annual Open Exhibition First Prize

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY London BP Portrait Awards. Jack a Morley Richards, Llanfihangel (oils) Voted most popular painting by visitors to the exhibition

ADNODDAU CYMRU Llanfyllin International Sculpture Symposium

LLYN EFYRNWY Powys Sculpture Trail

1995

ARTS COLLECTION Llanfyllin

ORIEL 31 Newtown Annual Open Exhibition, Highly Commended

1989

DIAMOND RECORD SLEEVE AWARDS Brussels Nominee

1988

DIAMOND RECORD SLEEVE AWARDS Brussels Nominee

1986

HAMILTONS GALLERY London Creative Futures (Sleeves, posters and paintings)

DIAMOND RECORD SLEEVE AWARDS Brussels Nominee

MUSIC WEEK AWARDS London
First Prize Album Sleeve
Third Prize Album Sleeve
First Prize Single Sleeve

1985

MUSIC WEEK AWARDS London
First Prize Single Sleeve

People, family and friends. Motorcycles, mountaineering, gardening, reading. I have an uneducated interest in philosophy.

Art History. I have a passionate interest in painting. I feel there is too much made of the (arbitrary and artificial) divide between representation and abstraction. I believe there can be good painting and bad. I find great inspiration before the works of Van Eyck, Titian, ElGreco, Vermeer, Velasquez, Hals, Rembrandt, Constable, Turner, Cotman, Corot, Manet, Gaugin, Cezanne, Marc, Picasso, Miro, Ernst, Klee, Sutherland, Rothko, Beuys, Tapies...

I once heard art defined as primary research. I aim in painting to make something solid in 2 dimensions, not as an illusion of reality but by learning and employing a vocabulary of marks to establish a work that does not rely entirely on sources extant in the real world for its validity. I do not believe that holding a figurative element precludes this.