Keith Donovan is a Canadian born artist living in France.

“After some years of study, practice and travel I moved to a small village in central France, about three hours from Paris. Here, the street lights go out at 10 pm every evening, the nights are very dark, starry or moonlit. In the summer there are glow worms, frogs and crickets; in the winter, three kinds of owls. 

I found an old, dirty, torn copy of Benjamin Rabier’s Gedeon Mecano, from the 1920’s. He was a pioneer comic book artist, overshadowed later by Hergé who made Tintin famous. Rabier shows a real humanity with his work, a tenderness that made the idea of tearing up his work to make mine was difficult. But kids had drawn and scribbled in this copy; it was a rich mess. So after a few years, I made a dozen or so collages. 

Three years later, I’m still working mostly with his material. I come to it with the desire to make something new. “

keith-donovan.com @keithdonovan4