Danny Keen –Art

Danny Keen –Art, Baking and Music at City College Norwich –Norfolk Black History Month

Danny Keen, Norfolk-based artist, who came to London from Jamaica in 1952 as one of the ‘Windrush generation’, is exhibiting a series of 24 abstract paintings called ‘Of Black Holes and Violets’ at the Norfolk Black History Month Exhibition, in the Start Up Lounge, City College, Norwich.

Lord John Bird of Notting Hill, founder of the Big Issue, will officially open the exhibition at 5pm on Friday, October 7.  He will also present an award for the best painting or sculpture in the exhibition.

The City College exhibition runs from October 3 to October 21, open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.  Other artists involved are Nathan Clarke, John Bardell, Josie Brett, Diana Lamb, Robert Short, Peter James, Daisy Gyapong, along with local people from the New Routes Charity.  The charity works with minority ethnic individuals and communities in Norwich, enabling their active involvement in local society www.newroutes.org.uk.

Lady Parveen Bird of Notting Hill and children will judge a special Black History Month Bake Off, featuring cakes created by City College students, at 2pm on Friday, October 7, also in the Start Up Lounge.

Danny Keen and Nathan Clarke will be artists in residence at City College on Thursday,  October 13 and Monday, October 17 respectively, working with City College students.

Then on Thursday, October 20, 6pm to 8pm in the Start Up Lounge at City College, John Davison, with Norwich soul legend, Bruce Lucas, are presenting ‘How Norfolk Got Blues and Soul (and passed it out to the rest of the country)’. Tickets are £6 on the door.

Danny Keen is exhibiting his enormous Triptych work at Cromer Library from Monday, October 3 to Saturday, October 29. He has also arranged for Casper ‘The Mighty Phantom’ James to perform his Calypso Carnival on Saturday, October 22 at Sheringham Library, from 10am to 11am, and Cromer Library, from 1pm to 2pm. Both events are part of Norfolk Black History Month and the COAST Festival.

Danny Keen explained: “It is very good to be working so closely with City College and its students during Black History Month. The baking event gives students the chance to explore how cake ingredients are inextricably linked with black history. The driving force behind colonial expansion was the insatiable demand for sugar and spices, along with exotic fruits, such as bananas and pineapples.”

“Our art exhibition looks at black history in its widest terms, with work by Norwich and Norfolk artists and City College students. My abstract paintings are inspired by my lifetime interest in martial arts and my Shiatsu and Reiki healing practice. I describe my work as active painting. I want as much of it as possible to be outside my control. The paint goes where it wants to go and I follow it. It’s an exciting process and I feel that it is very similar to the experience that I have when I play jazz on the piano.”

Danny Keen –Art

Danny Keen Background

Danny Keen studied art at Wimbledon School of Art and Ealing School of Art and graduated in fine art, specialising in painting from the Central School of Art in 1970. He then took a job as a trainee chef at The Players Theatre Club, working at night in order to pay his way through three years at Westminster Catering College.

Danny became a ‘chef de cuisine’, worked as a catering manager, then as chef patron of his own restaurants, jazz bars and hotels.  He retired from catering in 1998 to pursue a career as an artist specialising in portraiture, particularly famous fellow West Indians, and has developed his practice in recent years to include colourful abstract paintings.

His portrait of boxer James Oyebola, who died in 2007, the victim of gun crime, hangs in City Hall London. Danny has also created a series of portraits of Johnson Beharry, who was awarded the first Victoria Cross for 20 years in 2005, for his bravery in Iraq.  Two of the portraits of L/Cpl Beharry VC are at the Imperial War Museum in London and another is at the Tower of London.

Danny’s portraits also include Mary Seacole, the 19th century Jamaican nurse, best-known for her work in the Crimean War, Tim Campbell, who won the first series of The Apprentice in 2005 and Lord John Bird of Notting Hill, founder of the Big Issue.

Danny has always had an interest in martial arts, since joining a wrestling club as a youngster. He is a black belt in judo as well as a judo coach. He was the senior coach of Sheringham Judo Club for nearly 10 years. In more recent years he has turned his interest in the martial arts into a career in the Oriental healing disciplines of Shiatsu and Reiki. Danny is also a jazz and blues pianist.