… “Krueger’s pieces are not random at all. The found pieces are chosen with discrimination; the finished artworks show signs of deliberation. The colors contribute at least as much to the final effect as their construction, often with bits recognizable text and image’’ …
Micheal Chan, OCCurrence, July, 2003
“The works convey a sense of motion, partly because of their asymmetrical structure, but even more so because many seem to resemble modes of transportation.”
Myrna Petlicki, Pioneer Press, July 2003
“Working primary with discarded material and salvaged objects, Keith Krueger builds works that evoke a strong sense of history.
His materials of choice include old metal signs, wooden architectural ornaments, oversized letters and nautical fragments.
The mixed media assemblages now on exhibit at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center are cheerful works, full of primary colors and simplified shapes alluding to aa happier time—there is something elementary and childlike about them.
Upon closer inspection, however, the colors have faded a bit, the paint is dirty and chipped, raw wood has weather to gray and recognizable objects have been broken and reconfigured.
Separated from their original purpose and placed within a new and more fluid context, the objects take on a new meaning and mood, a complex mood full of longing for past, while acknowledging the imperfection and fallacies one can see in only hindsight.
Krueger constructs these pieces by clustering found objects into asymmetric shapes, like off-kilter and highly unusual jigsaw puzzles.
They are not really sculptures but rather wall pieces or reliefs. Although they are constructed using three-dimensional objects, the finished works are distinctly two-dimensional, made for viewing from a straight-on, frontal vantage point.
This no-nonsense and direct approach to assembling found materials helps Krueger steer clear of the maudlin. Krueger is undoubtedly interested in the past but he is not overly sentimental about it.
Krueger has a unique way of adding txt in his work, including old signs among the bits of salvaged wood and other familiar objects that he uses.
The signs bring memory-laden advertising images and mundane slogans to the mix; they seem incongruous in their new surroundings, like resurrected references to a distant era.
Yet in this new context, what was once banal becomes poetic. In Dotti, for instance, an old Wonder Bread sign, complete with red, yellow and blue balloons, is included in the composition along with the words “Builds Strong”, from the bread’s slogan, “Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways”.
Anyone who was a child in the 1950s and ‘60s is immediately taken back to that era by the familiar image and struck by the irony in the words.
Advertising, like art, can work on many levels: The inclusion of signs and text pay homage to the past, but they do so with an undercurrent of tongue-in-cheek humor.
The dynamic between abstract and recognizable objects is another element that brings life to Krueger’s compositions.
Each work is made up of a combination of objects, some simply shapes, some clearly familiar in history and purpose and some with a distinctly utilitarian flavor that cannot quite be pinned down. Each work is a lively tussle between these three kinds of materials.
In “Sport”, a large E, a runaway from an eye chart, coexists with a small yellow metal plate and apiece of green wood in the shape of a toy ship. This sits on the top of a curved shape that could be part of rudder. Or maybe it’s the top of a porch post?
It doesn’t really matter. These are lively, playful pieces that take us on a journey to the past and look back again, effectively engaging our imaginations along the way.”
Nancy Saucer, Washington Post, December, 2000
“The most impressive sculpture among the six he’s showing is “York”, which joins a sheet-hued metal to a black-painted portion of a wooden newel post from which must have been a Victorian mantle. The wall-hung assemblage’s project components amount to horizonal sequence of red, black, blue and a light gray pushing out to space. Besides being a simple exercise in form and color, this assemblage has a specific historical reference, thanks to the Eastlake-style carvings in the fragmentary mantle.”
Mike Giuliano, Baltimore City Paper, January 2000
“Keith Krueger’s assemblages entitled “Lost and Found” are beautiful piece that bear no pretensions. Krueger’s work is very literal the titles refer directly to where the piece were collected or are inspired by what a single component might remind him of. There is something endearing to me about an artist who “lays it all out before us” without the artistic pomposity. To me, he has the approach of a craftsman although he no mechanical abilities. Many of the pieces are assembled as he finds them, others” smashed” into place. They are however with considerable skill and design sense. Although there are a lot of “assemblages” out there that utilize found objects few are constructed with such restraint. These were my favorite works in the show, check out “Pyramid” and “Baron”.”
Stuart Greenwell, Articulate
Washington & Baltimore Art Review, June 1995
“Krueger, an admirer of Rauschenberg, combines a painterly eye with an assemblagists’ soul. Lost and Found are colorful wall mounted mixed media assemblages and free standing sculptures, reflecting the detritus or roadside culture. His training in architecture and a as painter can be sensed in the formal way he arranges colorful objects in space, usually concentrating his relief sculptures on the frontal plane. The more simple the arraignment, the more complex the thought, such as baron, which demonstrates a lovely consideration of form and structure working together.”
LM, KOAN (Ken Oda’s art newsletter), June 1995
Micheal Chan, OCCurrence, July, 2003
“The works convey a sense of motion, partly because of their asymmetrical structure, but even more so because many seem to resemble modes of transportation.”
Myrna Petlicki, Pioneer Press, July 2003
“Working primary with discarded material and salvaged objects, Keith Krueger builds works that evoke a strong sense of history.
His materials of choice include old metal signs, wooden architectural ornaments, oversized letters and nautical fragments.
The mixed media assemblages now on exhibit at the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center are cheerful works, full of primary colors and simplified shapes alluding to aa happier time—there is something elementary and childlike about them.
Upon closer inspection, however, the colors have faded a bit, the paint is dirty and chipped, raw wood has weather to gray and recognizable objects have been broken and reconfigured.
Separated from their original purpose and placed within a new and more fluid context, the objects take on a new meaning and mood, a complex mood full of longing for past, while acknowledging the imperfection and fallacies one can see in only hindsight.
Krueger constructs these pieces by clustering found objects into asymmetric shapes, like off-kilter and highly unusual jigsaw puzzles.
They are not really sculptures but rather wall pieces or reliefs. Although they are constructed using three-dimensional objects, the finished works are distinctly two-dimensional, made for viewing from a straight-on, frontal vantage point.
This no-nonsense and direct approach to assembling found materials helps Krueger steer clear of the maudlin. Krueger is undoubtedly interested in the past but he is not overly sentimental about it.
Krueger has a unique way of adding txt in his work, including old signs among the bits of salvaged wood and other familiar objects that he uses.
The signs bring memory-laden advertising images and mundane slogans to the mix; they seem incongruous in their new surroundings, like resurrected references to a distant era.
Yet in this new context, what was once banal becomes poetic. In Dotti, for instance, an old Wonder Bread sign, complete with red, yellow and blue balloons, is included in the composition along with the words “Builds Strong”, from the bread’s slogan, “Helps Build Strong Bodies 12 Ways”.
Anyone who was a child in the 1950s and ‘60s is immediately taken back to that era by the familiar image and struck by the irony in the words.
Advertising, like art, can work on many levels: The inclusion of signs and text pay homage to the past, but they do so with an undercurrent of tongue-in-cheek humor.
The dynamic between abstract and recognizable objects is another element that brings life to Krueger’s compositions.
Each work is made up of a combination of objects, some simply shapes, some clearly familiar in history and purpose and some with a distinctly utilitarian flavor that cannot quite be pinned down. Each work is a lively tussle between these three kinds of materials.
In “Sport”, a large E, a runaway from an eye chart, coexists with a small yellow metal plate and apiece of green wood in the shape of a toy ship. This sits on the top of a curved shape that could be part of rudder. Or maybe it’s the top of a porch post?
It doesn’t really matter. These are lively, playful pieces that take us on a journey to the past and look back again, effectively engaging our imaginations along the way.”
Nancy Saucer, Washington Post, December, 2000
“The most impressive sculpture among the six he’s showing is “York”, which joins a sheet-hued metal to a black-painted portion of a wooden newel post from which must have been a Victorian mantle. The wall-hung assemblage’s project components amount to horizonal sequence of red, black, blue and a light gray pushing out to space. Besides being a simple exercise in form and color, this assemblage has a specific historical reference, thanks to the Eastlake-style carvings in the fragmentary mantle.”
Mike Giuliano, Baltimore City Paper, January 2000
“Keith Krueger’s assemblages entitled “Lost and Found” are beautiful piece that bear no pretensions. Krueger’s work is very literal the titles refer directly to where the piece were collected or are inspired by what a single component might remind him of. There is something endearing to me about an artist who “lays it all out before us” without the artistic pomposity. To me, he has the approach of a craftsman although he no mechanical abilities. Many of the pieces are assembled as he finds them, others” smashed” into place. They are however with considerable skill and design sense. Although there are a lot of “assemblages” out there that utilize found objects few are constructed with such restraint. These were my favorite works in the show, check out “Pyramid” and “Baron”.”
Stuart Greenwell, Articulate
Washington & Baltimore Art Review, June 1995
“Krueger, an admirer of Rauschenberg, combines a painterly eye with an assemblagists’ soul. Lost and Found are colorful wall mounted mixed media assemblages and free standing sculptures, reflecting the detritus or roadside culture. His training in architecture and a as painter can be sensed in the formal way he arranges colorful objects in space, usually concentrating his relief sculptures on the frontal plane. The more simple the arraignment, the more complex the thought, such as baron, which demonstrates a lovely consideration of form and structure working together.”
LM, KOAN (Ken Oda’s art newsletter), June 1995
