Keith English Blog

The Legend of St IA So many times Keith has represented the moon with a female image. He generally painted the moon as feminine and the sun as masculine. St IA was a real person who came to St Ives from Ireland to teach Christianity. She had a brother named Erth who travelled with several other missionaries to Cornwall. She wanted to come with them but as so often happened to women of that time, was told it was unseemly so she was left behind. This did not stop her. Legend tells us that she arrived on Porthmeor Beach sailing upon a leaf. (This was most likely an Irish boat made of skins which resembled a leaf to the people on the shore.)  Young IA (or Eia) was most fortunate, for the currents that brought her could have just as likely taken her as far as Nova Scotia or beyond. At a tender age (perhaps as young as 15 or 16) she set up her teaching station on what the locals call the 'Island' where St Nicholas' Chapel sits today. It very likely was surrounded by water...

St Ives Harbour at Dawn A lot of you own or have seen examples of Keith's early work. When Keith first started painting he began with subjects that he could see... He used actual models or he painted a seascape or landscape that impressed him with it's beauty. He used to say that if it stood still long enough he would paint it! His subjects never remained exactly the same. After several years of painting the sea or schooners he would shift to painting clowns or character studies. The pathos in the single tear on the face of his very unique clowns have the ability to make you feel reflective or sad. Because of the emotion that he brought to the surface through the paint, you either loved them or not. But no one could deny the skill behind them. Keith had a wry sense of humour and often this was evident in the paintings, making you smile. EscarGOt - these snails are impossible to eat! Everyone loves the seascapes... he captured water so beautifully, emplo...

'Metatron'  - a representation of an actual crop circle 'The Golden Section' Keith was always intrigued with how the beauty of mathematics related to the Universal Language of how things work in our third dimensional reality. This painting, 'The Golden Section', is his depiction of an actual mathematical symbol and one of those mysteries he sought to explore. Although not a mathematician in any way, he first discovered that there was something to this while meditating in the late 1990's. Keith intuited through dreams and meditations which many times led him to the sources of his paintings. Keith often had visions during meditation. On this occasion he was met by an old man who told him that his name was Enoch. (Interestingly, Enoch was a prophet of the Old Testament in the Bible. According to biblical scripture Enoch and the City of Enoch had reached such a point of purity that they totally disappeared from the Earth. Keith would have called t...