Earl Grenville Killeen

Having moved from New York City to the Connecticut Shoreline in 1981, Earl has been active in the arts community as an exhibiting artist, writer, and teacher, and through his involvement with the Shoreline Arts Alliance. He founded the Alliance’s Future Choices Annual Juried Show for regional high school students, now in its fourth decade, and in 2017 he established an annual Founder’s Award for the show, to be shared by an art teacher and a student artist. Earl’s work in acrylics, watercolor, pen & ink, and graphite have appeared in many exhibitions, as well as in publications, including feature articles in The Artist’s Magazine and Splash 3; and he is the author of The North Light Book of Acrylic Painting Techniques (1995). In addition to many awards for his paintings, Earl has received three Individual Artist Grants (two from the State of Connecticut). In his current work as a watercolorist, Earl explores layering and texturing techniques that include power-sanding, liberally spraying the painted surface with water, and applying dampened beach sand that is scraped off when dry. His work in recent years explores a range of subjects, from images abstracted from heavy construction machinery in the Totemics series to the imaginative self-portraits that are Out of This Soul. When not in his studio, Earl enjoys the aesthetics and serenity of the abundantly-flowering garden that he has transformed his backyard into, reading, and communing with his cat.