Keith Haynes
Keith’s work explores pop art in its purest form, using album sleeves, record labels, badges and, of course, beautiful vinyl records – the hard currency of pop culture – to create striking and witty pop art pieces with a strong graphic design aesthetic.
A selection of photographs taken of the gallery installation, November 2018
The Clash – Guns series
The Clash “Guns” series is a beautiful collection that nicely encapsulates Keith’s style.
Cut from original Clash seven inch singles that themselves reference guns – be it in their song titles, subject matter or graphic design – each is supplied in a 25 x 25 cm / 10 x 10 inch black box frame ready to hang. They are a nice size for small spaces and work well individually or in groups.
Subject covered include: Bankrobber, I Fought The Law, Guns of Brixton, Tommy Gun, (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais (with its gun label), English Civil War and The Call Up.
These entry level signed limited edition pieces are very collectible, and at a price of £ 275 including frame, you won’t need to rob a bank to get yourself a Bankrobber – although you will have to move quickly if you want that particular piece because the edition is rapidly approaching its end.
All The Single Ladies
All The Single Ladies is one of our favourite pieces. A large format artwork in a 90 x 90 x 10cm perspex box frame, it consists of 26 seven inch singles, one for each letter of the alphabet, each one cut into heart shape. Each single has the name of a lady, from A to Z, and the full list for number 1/5 in the edition is as follows:
Angie – The Rolling Stones | Barbara Ann – The Beach Boys | Carrie Anne – The Hollies | Debora – T-Rex | Eloise – Barry Ryan with The Majority | Flora – Peter, Paul and Mary | Gloria – Them | Hey Hey Helen – ABBA | Isabella – Jimmy Crikitt | Jane – Jefferson Starship | Kim – Steve Hackett | Layla – Derek and the Dominos | Mona Lisa – Conway Twitty | Natasha – Orchester Albert van Dam | Ode to Olivia – Stella Parton | Pamela Pamela – Wayne Fontana | Queenie Queenie – The Upstarts | Rosie – Jackson Browne | Sophie – Charlie | Tina – The Ron-Dells | Ursula – John Mogensen | Valerie – Time Gallery | To Wendy with Love – Sounds Orchestral | Xanthia – The Off-Set | Yolanda – Bobby Bland | Flowers for Zoe – Lenny Kravitz
Two-Tone, Madness and Factory
Three popular pieces from cut vinyl presented in black box frames with circular black window mounts.
Larger portraits
Keith’s larger portraits typically measure 70 x 70 cm / 27.5 x 27.5 inches, and are presented in perspex box frames for a clean and uncluttered contemporary finish. These pieces really shine. Cut perspex forms the backdrop – the canvas if you want to think of it that way – to which Keith adds his meticulously cut original vinyl records to form the finished piece.
The Spines series
Many people think that Keith’s Spines series are photographs. That’s not the case. They are drawings which Keith makes from scratch, painstakingly recreating and combining each spine into the overall artwork. He has been known to make one deliberate mistake in each piece to demonstrate that it is not a reproduction.
Vinyl Underground
Vinyl Underground is Keith’s riff on the famous Andy Warhol designed banana cover of The Velvet Underground and Nico, the first album by The Velvet Underground. It is presented in a 70 x 70 cm perspex box frame, ready to hang.
Keith’s version uses yellow vinyl versions of the Velvet Underground album, along with a cheeky addition – a yellow vinyl seven inch of “Banana Splits (The Tra La La Song)” by The Dickies from 1979 – which you can see up near the top of the banana.
In fact this entire piece is the top banana.
Smaller portraits
The portraits that follow are made with original cut vinyl and presented in black box frames measuring 52 x 52 cm.
Sleeves and words
These pieces combine original album or single sleeves with words from songs in gold or silver. They are supplied in black wood frames.
Maps and legends
Keith’s large format map based artworks are real showstoppers.
Each original vinyl record that features on a map has been specifically chosen because it represents the place name where it is located on the map. Keith’s maps feature the UK, USA, London and New York. The maps are made in dramatic large sizes in perspex box frames.
Hitsville UK – Part of the Union – in 150cm x 100cm perspex box frame
Hitsville UK – Part of the Union
Hitsville UK – Part of the Union has pride of place on the back wall of the gallery during Keith’s exhibition.
To create the backdrop, an aged Union flag is stretched and mounted behind perspex, and original seven-inch singles, selected for their place name references, have been cut to shape and combined to form the land mass. The entire piece sits within a 150 x 100 x 7 cm (60 x 40 x 3 inches approx) perspex box frame.
Keith provides the purchaser with a memory stick on which he has recorded each of the records in the piece prior to cutting.
Words and music
These pieces typically measure 70x 70 cm and many are presented in red perspex box frames. The seven inch singles that have been cut to form the letters of the words have ben specifically chosen because they reference the subject of the overall piece. For example, Love Is The Drug consists of songs about love and drugs. Geddit?
God Save The Queen
God Save The Queen – Nine Queens – in 80 x 70 cm perspex box frame
God Save The Queen – Nine Queens
The Sex Pistols, and their single “God Save The Queen” have been a strong influence and appear in a number of Keith’s artworks.
In Nine Queens, Keith brings together nine different coloured vinyl versions of the single on the A&M label, each one cut into the profile of Her Majesty.
This vibrant piece is presented in a 70 x 80 x 10 cm acrylic box frame.
Nitrous Oxide
Two playful pieces constructed from Nitrous Oxide capsules
Biography
London-born Keith Haynes is a contemporary artist whose work is driven by a passion for music and design. Nostalgic and playful, Keith’s work has carved a distinctive niche in Pop Art culture, blending subject and object through his use of the ‘clutter’ of popular culture – button badges, album covers, and vinyl records.
With his love of graphic design, Keith creates work of striking visual acuity, playing with texture, colour and composition to generate an eye-catching aesthetic. Retrospective and yet also forward-looking, Keith has found a delicate way of holding onto our tactile past, refusing the onslaught of digitalisation.
Photo credit: Alexandria Savege
Whether it’s a graphically iconic portrait, a map or song lyric, each piece is created from a material that enhances the subject matter.
In his “Hitsville” map series of works, Keith selects each vinyl record based on the song’s title and the beauty and originality of the record label. Look closely, and you’ll spot the geographical relevance of each record’s positioning, allowing the final piece to become not just a graphic representation but also an evocation of place through sound and music. With this approach the subject is the object, and vice versa.
His work has been exhibited extensively in the UK and overseas and can be found in private collections in Europe, America, Canada, Asia and Australia.