Keith Carter

(American, born 1948)

Keith Carter is an American photographer known for his ghostly images of animals, still lifes, portraits, and figures in landscapes. Using black-and-white photography and varied focuses, he creates a mysterious sense of mythology and disorientation, making strange the familiar places and people of his native East Texas. “It's not so much what you see, it's the significance that you see in things that give them resonance,” Carter has said. “I like small moments that are almost elliptical, that are not necessarily linear...they're natural things that happen in the world, but if you look at them from a slight angle there's more than meets the eye.” Born on June 3, 1948 in Madison, WI, he grew up in Beaumont, TX and went on to study business administration at Lamar University in Beaumont. After graduating, Carter began producing both personal and commercial photography. His photography has earned him the Texas Medal of Arts and the Lange-Turner Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, as well as a distinguished faculty position, and the endowed Walles Chair of Art at Lamar University. Carter has published 11 monographs including From Uncertain to Blue (1988), Holding Venus (2000), and Fireflies: Photographs of Children (2009). The artist’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Carter lives and works in Beaumont, TX.