Thirty 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 thirty 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.
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.
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.
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.
The long view
1994
First serious work in oil, and the start of a practice that hasn’t stopped since.
2005
Public and private walls across Tennessee.
2015
Moved the studio to the Cumberland Plateau in Tracy City.
Today
Commissions, murals, and small workshops from the studio, year-round.
By the numbers
Since
Thirty years of painting the Cumberland Plateau — oil, acrylic, and whatever the surface asks for.
Mural commissions across Tennessee.
Works on record.
Every surface worked slowly, in layers.
Studio visits in Tracy City, TN.
A small number of murals and portraits each year.