Cerebral palsy-stricken painter opens solo exhibit

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Spirit moves him
With bold strokes, artist Dan Keplinger, aka "King Gimp," shares strength and beauty in his first local solo exhibit.

By Glenn McNatt
Sun Art Critic
Originally published February 21, 2004

"The self-portrait takes up nearly the entire space behind the display window at Fleckenstein Gallery in Towson. It shows the head of a bearded young man with intense dark eyes, rendered in an agitated, expressionist style that seems almost abstract until you meet the artist...."

"...Keplinger has been afflicted since birth with cerebral palsy, a condition that deprives its victims of control over the movements of their bodies and cruelly isolates them from the world.

Keplinger cannot really hold still for the camera; his slight frame seems to obey a will of its own, expressed in small, incessant bobbing motions of his head, torso and limbs.It's hard for him to speak because he can't modulate his voice in conversation. He needs a motorized wheelchair to get around, and it is only with great difficulty that he manages to shake hands in greeting a reporter who arrives.

But in paint, Keplinger can express himself perfectly. In paint, he can show the world who he is, can show the quick-witted individual inside the flawed body who thinks about things and feels deeply about them, who cracks jokes and falls in love, who can look into the deepest parts of himself without pity or fear and find something beautiful there.

Keplinger's struggle to become an artist despite his crushing disability was memorably recounted in Baltimore filmmakers Susan Hannah Hadary and William A. Whiteford's 2000 movie King Gimp, which won an Oscar for best short documentary that year. The movie led to two solo New York shows for Keplinger at New York's Phyllis Kind Gallery in 2000 and 2002. His third solo New York show opens there Feb. 28. And today his first solo show in Maryland, where he grew up, opens at the Fleckenstein Gallery in Towson.

"Most people think of a 'gimp' as a cripple," Keplinger says in the film, which was shot over a 14-year period during which Keplinger attended a state school for disabled children, Parkville High School and Towson University, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1998. "I think of a gimp as a fighting spirit...."

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