My work explores the intersections of place and intense emotion and the ideas surrounding expansion and contraction through vibrant mixed-media monotypes. For the past four years, my renewed artistic practice has centered on printmaking, heavily inspired by travel and my experiences of the built environment. I am interested in documenting places ranging from urban landscapes, such as the Grand Canal in Venice, to the intimacy of an interior space, such as a printmaking studio's reading room. I build my prints using layers of deep, saturated color, aiming to create energetic tension. This gives finished works a joyful, almost celebratory quality, even as the places and experiences that inspire them may carry more complicated emotional associations. More recently, I have playfully used embossment and layering to challenge our sense of boundaries and spatial perception.
Kathleen Keys has taught in and coordinated the BFA Art Education program at Boise State University since 2005. Beyond her faculty role, she has also served in many academic leadership capacities at Boise State.
Kathleen recently studied printmaking at intensive residency programs in Guanajuato City, Guanajuato, Mexico, and in both Florence and Venice, Italy. She exhibited work in the 2025 Boise State Biannual Faculty Exhibition and began to maintain an art studio in December 2025. Her current practice consists of mixed media printmaking and painting. She holds a BFA in painting from the University of Kentucky and both an MA in arts policy administration and a PhD in art education from The Ohio State University. An avid supporter of the arts community, Kathleen completed a decade of service with the Boise Art Museum’s Board of Trustees in 2022 and rejoined the board in 2024.
