King Gimp's Miraculous Realm

Art Business News, Oct, 2000 by Julie Keller

To communicate in a world made complicated by his struggle with cerebral palsy, Academy Award winner Dan Keplinger discovered the healing magic of art.

For Dan Keplinger, painting isn't just a way to earn a living or a simple creative outlet. It is his voice. Born with cerebral palsy, daily routines, like eating, getting from place to place and even communicating are a challenge. But Keplinger has found a way to break free through art. "No one could understand that I was an intelligent person inside this body," he explained in King Gimp, the Academy Award-winning documentary about his life. "The best thing that happened to me had to be art. Art gave me a way to express myself without anybody interpreting for me ... in my head, there is a sweet siren voice telling me where the brush will move. I obeyed the brush ... the brush became my force."

Keplinger was born in Baltimore, Md., and he attended Parkville High School. There he developed an interest in art, and his art teacher worked with him during and after school, helping Keplinger learn to paint using a helmet-like device with a paintbrush attached. His love of art continued after high school, and he attended Towson State University where he majored in art. "If I had more students who had the commitment--a kind of force behind the things that Danny does," said Stuart Stein, a well-known artist on the faculty, "my job would be that much easier."

The road through high school and college has been a hard one for Keplinger. He was often discouraged from painting and many thought the complications of cerebral palsy would make being an artist much too difficult for him. But he has repeatedly proven them wrong. Though his illness is characterized by uncontrolled body movements, he displays uncanny control as he works on the floor of his studio to create his oil paintings.

Most of his self-described impressionistic/figurative paintings, which take about two weeks each to create, are self-portraits. "I use my self-portraits to keep a visual diary because you can tell what I was feeling at the time," he explained. He's also begun painting portraits of others and still lifes--currently his favorite subjects are "people who are older because they are much more interesting," he said.

Keplinger has won several awards and exhibited in art shows around the country, most recently wrapping his first solo exhibition in New York City. At the show, 24 original oil paintings were displayed at the Phyllis Kind Gallery. Said gallery owner Phyllis Kind about his work: "The paintings of Dan Keplinger serve as a prime example of the intense and immense combustion between creativity and determination which sometimes births art. His paintings are superb in terms of objective criteria--his compositions are remarkable and his use of color is extraordinary."

Also, HBO has mounted a virtual exhibition of his work at www.hbo.com. All of the paintings displayed at the gallery are also on view online and accompanied by biography information, personal anecdotes and more.

Keplinger's inspirational story has also captured the attention of Hollywood. When he was 12, two local filmmakers, Susan Hadary and William Whiteford, began to document his life. The followed him through grade school, high school and his graduation from Towson University with a degree in art. They filmed the 27-year-old artist for more than 13 years, and last year, the HBO film King Gimp, written by Keplinger, won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject.

The film's title, according to Keplinger, is a perfect description of him. "Most people think `gimp' means someone with a lame walk. But `gimp' also means a `fighting spirit," he said.

And with his Academy Award, his burgeoning art career and his fighting spirit, one thing is certain--King Gimp most certainly is a master of his kingdom.