September 13th, 2017
For his closest friends and members of the Irwin Keyes family, one of the things we most love and have been most consistently inspired by is how steadfastly our dear brother has pursued his dreams while remaining positive against tremendous odds and challenges with a whole lot of hard work and wonderful sense of humor.
This hulking, 250-pound actor remained remarkably upbeat throughout his career although he was constantly typecast in heavy, even grisly roles. Irwin continued to work tirelessly on films, television, and commercials for over 35 years, gaining the most worldwide recognition for his portrayals of the malicious henchman Wheezy Joe in the 2003 Coen Brothers film Intolerable Cruelty, as Fred and Barney’s friend Joe Rockhead in the Flintstones (1994), and as the wild masked man Ravelli in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003).
Although Irwin Keyes had a lifelong passion for drawing and painting, he did all the striking paintings in this present exhibition during a major burst of creativity in the 1990s and in the early 2000s in Santa Monica, California. Irwin often talked about the fact that “you gotta learn to tell a good and compelling story, no matter what genre of art you are creating in. And any artist worthy of that name is always learning.”
May we never stop learning from the humility, humanity, and tender loving heart of Irwin Keyes.
–Todd Barkan and Ilene Glick (sister of Irwin Keyes)