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You may not know his name, but you’ve seen his work: Paint Can Keith’s self-described “window splash” style has adorned the windows of Portland businesses ranging from The Florida Room and The Belmont Inn to the Sewlarium and Kenton Antiques. Keith’s characters are uncanny: a cutesy, Betty Boop-like mermaid adorns Mis Tacones, and a punk rock mouse greets passersby at Black Water Records.
“What I do is spontaneous and sometimes haphazard as often I’m not even sure what I will be painting until I get to the location,” Keith writes to WW.
Keith moved to Portland in 2009 and began window painting around 2020. He was inspired by the work of Scot Campbell, also known as Extremo the Clown. Campbell retired in 2021, having released YouTube tutorials showing his paint splash process; Keith (who asked that we refer to him by his nom d’art) became a virtual student and saw an opportunity to fill his clown shoes.
Also a designer of event flyers and record covers, as well as the founder of the Artshitz flea market, Keith hopes to paint the town colorful as long as he can. (Keith collaborates with an artist named Jade on larger projects.) “It’s been a pleasure getting to paint for folks,” he writes, “and I’d be lucky and psyched to keep doing it one form or another for as long as I can.”
