Southern Illinois artist Robert Ketchens focuses on the human condition, not race

Emotion knows no color.

That's the message Robert Ketchens sends when he talks about his art. Taken at a glance most of his paintings are of black women, black men and black children. But if you look further, they are really about compassion, cruelty, happiness.

"My focus is on the human condition, not necessarily one particular race," he said. "It's because I am African American that I use African American models."

Ketchens was raised in New Orleans, joined the Air Force, studied art in Germany and Texas and now lives in Southern Illinois. He has several paintings on display through February in Gallery 100 of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri.

Some of his art deals with racism, classism or sexism, like his piece "White Suits" that shows four men in white suits and the same men behind them and another line behind them, each line becoming more abstract. They're not particularly black or Asian, and they're not particularly white or Hispanic. Ketchens said it's a comment on the idea that "some jobs and positions reserved for certain people and that includes every race and nationality."

But Ketchens focuses on people in general and recording daily life.

"The one thing I want to do most of all is try to be a poeter on the modern condition," he said. He said his main focus is the human condition and man's struggles and emotions.

"The hardest thing for me as an artist is to get people to look past the skin color on a painting," he said.

One of his paintings shows celebration with three women dancing with colored ribbons and smiles. Another shows a small girl with a tutu and an adorably independent, proud look.

Ketchens' specialty lies in portraiture. He knows most of his subjects. He said he will bring in models to sit for him when he needs to get specific facial features, but for the most part he paints from memory, trying to convey the vibe or feeling he got from that person.

"I want to capture the essence of that subject," he said.

Ketchens has been drawing what he sees since he was a boy. He would look at his brother's drawings of the newspaper comics and try to replicate them.

"Drawing really kept me out of trouble," he said. "There's a lot of rainy days in New Orleans and kids get bored and when you get bored you get into trouble. I chose to draw."

His brother's specialty was Beetle Bailey.

Ketchens started drawing professionally as a medical illustrator in the Air Force. It was during the Vietnam War and his friends were all being drafted, he said. He joined the Air Force to stay out of the jungle. From 1977 to 1981, he was stationed in Germany.

"That's when I decided I wanted to learn to oil paint," he said.

He took morning classes from Herr Herzfield at the Herzfeld School of Art. He said he focuses on "CCVF" — composition, contrast, value and form. The composition or design is what draws a person to a painting and "arrests them in front of the work."

"I was clumsy in the beginning, but with study I've gotten better," he said.

He still studies. Artists have to be "ever-evolving," he said. "You can never be satisfied. It's a journey of investigating."

He also teaches. Ketchens has helped with community programs and summer camps that help teens build a resume and learn art and entrepreneurship.

"For me art can really reach kids who can't be reached in any other way," he said. "My favorite thing to tell them is whatever they do they can't be wrong."