SALISBURY — Durham-based artist James Keul is going to be leading a gallery talk entitled “In the Gallery” at Waterworks Visual Arts Center on March 19.

Keul is one of the three featured artists for their current exhibit, “Art for All: Engage, Connect, Participate,” but this will allow him and his art to take center stage. 

“I’m looking forward to sharing my work with more people, talking a little bit more about the stories behind the paintings, which isn’t always obvious when just looking at them,” Keul said. 

Keul attended the Savannah College of Arts and Science where he studied painting and later at the Arts Student League in New York. Keul describes the Savannah curriculum as “conceptual” and that inspired him to move to New York so he could learn more about the technical side of art. He ended up staying there for a decade and had the chance to work with the artist Frank Mason, who in turn learned under Frank Vincent Dumond. 

“There’s something about that legacy that I really liked and wanted to be a part of. That’s why I chose a more traditional path,” Keul said. 

While recently speaking at the School of Living Futures, a Durham non-profit, it dawned on Keul that he’s been doing “climate-related work” for the past 24 years.

“I basically started doing it more out of interest in the juxtaposition of power plants or paper mills or other types of industry against nature,” Keul said. 

Keul lived in Samoa, an island nation located southwest of Hawaii, when he was 16 and that experience opened his eyes to how vast the world really is and drove him towards the kind of art he creates today.  

“It was a very traditional society,” Keul said. “It was really humbling to see how people live in other parts of the world, and coming back, I think it was partly just the realization of the amount of waste that we have in this country that sparked it.”

The upcoming gallery talk will have Keul present his work which includes oil paintings, monotypes and drawings. It will also feature discussions on his background, climate change and even how anxiety influenced his art.

“Some of the ones in there represent some of the work I did a while back, which were intentionally meant to provoke a reaction,” Keul said. “There are other things that I’ve learned over the years, which is sometimes when you scare people with art, it doesn’t actually help. Some of the best art is more open ended and allows a little bit more for the viewer to interpret it. So, many of the paintings in there have that new trajectory in mind.”

Keul has been to Waterworks before and he says it’s “a wonderful space.” He highlights how much Waterworks Executive Director Anne Scott Clement and the rest of the staff are ahead of the curve when it comes to incorporating art with contemporary subject matter. 

“Anne Scott Clement shows a real forward thinking mentality by inviting people like me to come and show this work because I know it’s not without its own bit of controversy. Not everybody agrees on the political side about climate change, but artwork is one of those things that allows people to have those discussions,” Keul said.

“In the Gallery” with James Keul begins Tuesday, March 19, 5-6:30 p.m.