About

Keron Psillas

Keron Psillas | Photo by Honey Lazar

Keron Psillas Oliveira is a photographer, writer, instructor and mentor, with an extensive background in the print and publishing industry. Raised in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where after nearly two decades in the printing and publishing industry, Keron became a professional photographer in 2006.

Keron teaches week-long photography courses, equine photo workshops, and maintains a robust mentoring program for students in the US and abroad. She is the former director of the Art Wolfe Digital Photography Center. Keron is a longtime assistant to and continues to teach with photographic legends Sam Abell and Arthur Meyerson. She co-leads photography tours in Europe and other locations with Charlie Waite, Arthur Meyerson, and other leading professionals. She leads private tours (groups of 2-6) in Great Britain, Europe, Eastern Europe and South America.

In response to the challenge of Covid-19, Keron quickly developed The Creative Conversation, a bi-weekly interactive lecture series that brings the finest photographers and professionals to an ever-widening audience.

Her published works include the highly acclaimed Forty Years Later, Meditation for Two, The Alchemy of Lightness, and Dressage for the New Age, with long-time collaborator Dominique Barbier. She self-published Four Days in Havana and Loss and Beauty; creating solace in a land of infinite sorrow.

Loss and Beauty; creating solace in a land of infinite sorrow, puts composites of her original photographs in conversation to illuminate the personal journeys of victims of the unspeakable horror that was the Holocaust. Having dedicated five years to completing the first part of Loss and Beauty, Keron is now fully engaged in the next phase of the project. Beginning in April of 2019, she traveled further into Eastern Europe to create images and essays that depict the plight of the inhabitants there from 1939-1942. This time period has become known as The Holocaust by Bullets. As always, she seeks to create solace in the face of darkness and sorrow.

Loss and Beauty won the prestigious Best of Show award for Photobook 2015. It was recognized by Karen Davis and Paula Tognarelli of Davis Orton Gallery and The Griffin Museum of Photography, respectively, as an exemplary photo essay and a finely crafted book. In 2019, Loss and Beauty received two Honorable Mentions in the International Photography Awards for fine art book and self-published book.. Keron has confirmation now that the full exhibition will be shown internationally, beginning Summer 2024. Two series of six images each were awarded Honorable Mention, Humanitarian Work, Professional,  in the 20th Julia Margaret Cameron Awards. The entirety of the project, now titled A Song of Death and Dying: creating solace in a land of infinite sorrow, will be released in a trade edition as well as a Fine Press Edition in early 2025.

Keron released Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within, in November of 2018 from Veritas Editions. It has already garnered important awards, including being an Rfoto Folio Selection for 2019 and Best in Show for Light Sensitive 2020 at Art Intersection. This hand-crafted, fine art, museum book and portfolio includes work gleaned from 12 years of photographing the Lusitano horses in Portugal, Brasil, and the United States. Renowned for producing work of exquisite detail and quality, Veritas brings to Cavalo Lusitano the collaborative vision and skill of Marquand Editions’ Tieton Press to express the nobility of the Lusitano. Veritas is collaborating with master printer Stan Klimek to bring the fullness of Keron’s images to the limited edition, platinum/palladium prints included in this masterpiece. Handmade papers, a custom walnut case, and letter-press printing complete the vision for Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within. Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within is part of the Library of Congress’ Special Collection, The Getty Museum Special Collection, The Michigan University Rare Book Collection, and The Equestrian Library at the Palacio Nacional in Queluz, Portugal, as well as private rare book collections in the US and Europe.

Concurrent with Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within, Keron released a trade edition of her work titled: Lusitano: noble, courageous, eternal. This 96 page full-color edition is bold and seductive. The luscious color and her trademark sensitivity to light will pull you into not only the world of the Lusitano, but into a world that speaks of still mornings, natural rhythms and centuries of rich tradition. The photographer’s love of beauty, form, and nuance is illustrated on every page. Four essays, an introduction and foreword accompany 69 photographs. Lusitano received the Bronze Award in Publishing in 2019 from the prestigious IPPY awards.

Many of the prints from Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within as well as Lusitano: noble, courageous, eternal, were included in a one-person show at the Griffin Museum of Photography in early 2022.

Soft Eyes/Open Heart is Keron’s latest book project. Released in January of 2022, it is a collection of ten titles, each book with 10 original prints, in an accordion book, handmade, with a custom handmade sleeve. Renowned photographers have added a foreword for each of the titles and an introduction and extended captions pull you into the artist’s thinking. The titles are all limited to an edition of 15 and may be collected individually or as the set of ten. Soft Eyes/Open Heart was selected for the Photobook of the Year Competition by Davis Orton Gallery/Griffin Museum of Photography.

Keron makes her home in the Ribatejo region of Portugal among her beloved Lusitano horses.

 

Permanent Collections

The Getty Museum Rare Books Collection

Library of Congress Rare Books/Special Collection

The Jewish Museum of Maryland

Palacio Nacional de Queluz Equestrian Library

Michigan State University Rare Books/Special Collection

Private collections in the US, Columbia, Brazil, Portugal, France and England.

 


“Keron is a brilliant artist and poet. As a mentor, she thinks deeply and is generous with her emotional energy. I always feel special in her presence.” ~Mary Turner, Seattle

“Keron has taken my photography skills to a new level of expertise.  She is knowledgeable, compassionate, and truly dedicated to assisting her students in accomplishing their photography goals.  I have seldom found such an inspiring teacher.” ~Marie Plakos, Whidbey Island