Keith Kaziak

Biography

Keith Kaziak’s research-based work mines the mundane and the vernacular of the human condition, seeking to answer the restless and existential question of why? Through artistic gestures that embody doubt, illusion, faith, and expectation, he creates staged absurdities between sculpture and immersive environments (sight, cite, site) that conjure associations rich in cultural and visual references to challenge our assumptions about the physical world. Working between dichotomies—existential feelings of Albert Camus’ Sisyphus and the trials and tribulations of Wile E. Coyote, comedy and tragedy, real and counterfeit, assumption and disbelief—he establishes a tension that gives his work power and presence.

He is a recipient of several awards and honors including a 2022 US Fulbright semi-finalist and the 2021 International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. Kaziak was a 2019–2022 Interdisciplinary Artist Research Cohort Fellow and received an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Current and upcoming exhibitions include Supernova: Hope Wang + Keith Kaziak, Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum, Milwaukee, WI, and Water Sports, Cleaner Gallery + Projects, Chicago, IL. Additional venues include Abel Contemporary, Stoughton, WI; Quad City Art Center, Rock Island, IL; Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI; Trout Museum of Art, Appleton, WI; Koehnline Museum of Art, Des Plaines, IL; Creative Cube, Milwaukee, WI; Valade Family Gallery, Detroit, MI; Real Tinsel Gallery, Milwaukee, WI; Quarter Gallery, Minneapolis, MN; CICA, South Korea; DeVos Art Museum, Marquette, MI; Sloss Furnaces Visitor Center Gallery and Ground Floor Contemporary, Birmingham, AL.