Ruth Grosvenor Keipp is a full-time abstract painter who resides in Lewes, Delaware. Born in Des Moines in 1951 and raised in the rural town of Colfax in central Iowa, Keipp received a Master of Arts in Journalism (photojournalism and graphic arts) from the University of Iowa. Keipp and her partner of over 30 years, Marilyn Mills, moved to Delaware in 2017 following a 20-year period in Washington D.C. Previously, Keipp spent parts of her adult life in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Utah.

Keipp began her career in professional photography as a photo editor for Tulsa Magazine, followed by teaching posts as an adjunct photography instructor at the University of Tulsa (OK) and later at Weber State University (UT); she also continued to pursue freelance photography and fine art exhibition. One of her early color photographs “Iris Leaves - Aqua” was juried into the Utah State Art Collection in 1986 by the renowned Judy Dater. Keipp’s earliest passion for black-and-white film and documentary photojournalism gave way mid-life to experimenting with abstract imagery and color film. This effort proved life-changing for her visual art. Ultimately, Keipp parted with the camera as her primary means of creative expression. Following a 22-year career with the Department of Defense, she began painting full-time in 2015, experimenting with brushes and paint on canvas to explore abstraction anew.

Keipp is a self-taught painter who works with acrylics, primarily, and often utilizes other mixed media such as oil pastels, graphite, ink, spray paint, collage media. From her earliest exposure to original art, she experienced an instant, visceral connection with the abstractions of Kandinsky, Picasso and Mark Rothko, and then later to Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, and William de Kooning. Her early foundation in fine art photography grounded Keipp’s technical knowledge of light, color balance, tonal range, composition and design, and allowed her to more rapidly develop her direction in abstract painting. She includes a language in her artwork that relies on gestural mark making, smudgy shapes and lines that are constructed in a non-representational approach, soft and bright color palettes, and negative space. Her paintings may trigger a mood or emotional response that is often informed by Keipp’s profound inspiration from instrumental jazz, specifically the music of Bill Evans, Chick Corea, Art Tatum, and John Coltrane.