About Keith.
Forty years of paint, mostly the Cumberland Plateau, mostly what's in front of him.
Keith Killebrew is a fine art painter based in Tracy City, Tennessee. His work moves between landscape, portrait, and interior — loose, fast, and always devoted to color.
His practice began at the kitchen table forty years ago, moved through years of institutional teaching, and eventually resettled in a working studio on the Cumberland Plateau where paintings and workshops share the same room.
The studio is a working classroom. Small workshops throughout the year invite beginners and painters with thirty years of their own — the point is not the finish, it's keeping making.
Beyond the studio, Keith accepts a small number of mural commissions each year for institutions, churches, schools, and private patrons across the region.
The practice. Slow, material, and built in layers.
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Practice
A slow, material practice
Keith works in oil and acrylic, building images slowly from observation and memory. The paintings favor temperature and mark over strict description — a likeness arrived at by feel rather than detail.
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Process
Built in layers
Each work is built up over weeks in successive passes. Earlier layers show through the final coat — collage, scraped paint, and dry pigment sitting at different depths until the surface decides how it wants to behave.
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Recognition
Commissions & collections
Work is held in private collections across the South. Keith takes on murals, portraits, and public commissions, and teaches from the studio on the Cumberland Plateau year-round.
A working history.
- 1985
Began painting
First serious work in oil, and the start of a practice that hasn’t stopped since.
- 2005
First mural commissions
Public and private walls across Tennessee.
- 2015
To the Plateau
Moved the studio to the Cumberland Plateau in Tracy City.
- Today
Studio & workshops
Commissions, murals, and small workshops from the studio, year-round.
The practice, in brief.
Since 1985
Forty years of painting the Cumberland Plateau — oil, acrylic, and whatever the surface asks for.
10+
Mural commissions across Tennessee.
200+
Works on record.
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Oil · Acrylic · Mixed media
Every surface worked slowly, in layers.
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By appointment
Studio visits in Tracy City, TN.
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Commissions welcome
A small number of murals and portraits each year.