Download issue as PDF - SLUG Magazine

Keith P. Rein
By Megan Kennedy
iamnightsky@gmail.com
I
magine an artistic cocktail combining traditional
and digital techniques, a dash of video games,
some beautiful women in sexual situations, and the
occasional popsicle. The result is the work of one-of-a-kind
illustrator Keith P. Rein, whose exceptional Athens, Ga.–
based studio, The P is for Penis, will be returning once again
this year to the Salt Lake Tattoo Convention.
Rein’s artistic life began early, inspired by his grandfather’s
wood-whittling and nurtured by his parents, who signed
him up for art classes as a child. He started college
studying photography, both in traditional methods and
digital, planting the seeds for the complex technique he
employs today: setting up his own photo sessions, and then
beginning several layers of illustration over the photograph.
The process can be lengthy, with many sessions of drawing,
scanning and printing, but the result is a distinctive blend
of modern and traditional art, and an irreverent sense of
humor that has made Rein successful enough to live the
artist’s dream of creating full time.
During his time in college, Rein’s bold vision was
already running into censorship and misunderstanding.
“I was in one class working on this gender issues series,
and my professor just didn’t get it at all. It was a series
where I set up tropes of growing up and life, having the
photographs [situated] regardless of the model’s gender—
like a girl going to the bathroom with male nudie mags
and masturbating. [The teacher] was just an old guy who
wasn’t used to seeing men and women in other genders’
clothing,” says Rein. That experience disenchanted him
from photography, which led to him illustrating over
photographs and freelancing digital portraits for two
years. After setting out on his own, Rein found freedom in
incorporating his particular brand of expression that his
college years simply had not supported. “Going through
art school, it was a very conceptually heavy program. If
you wanted to photograph pin-up girls or anything like
that, it was looked down on. You had to have some artistic,
art-history merit behind it. Doing illustration for me was at
first like, ‘I’m going to do things that I like, that are pretty
or funny or work together.’ Over the years, it grew into
something more conceptually sexualized,” he says.
Sexualized work is the name of the game for one of Rein’s
two studios, The P is for Penis. Rein not only illustrates
traditional pin-up style, nude portraits, but expresses his
unique sexual concepts in work like “Porn on the Cob,” an
illustration of two women sensually sharing a buttery corn
cob, or “Life’s a Picnic, Bring Your Friend,” a top-down
view of what could be a woman mid-fellatio, if she was
holding something other than an actual mustard-covered
hot dog. There’s also video game–inspired art like
“Princess Peach & the Pea,” a mash-up of a sexy Princess
Peach and the traditional Princess and the Pea fairy tale,
and his “Gals, Guns, Subtle Power and Pretty Wallpapers”
series, featuring women and firearms. Some find the art
empowering, others not so much, and the firearm series
was specifically in response to those who find his art
degrading. “That was a way to try and convince other
people who are looking at my stuff as pornographic and
degrading to women, to show I don’t feel that way at all.
Woman are awesome: They’re beautiful and powerful,”
says Rein.
Despite the best of intentions, such bold art can still have
a hard time finding an audience. Even in a college town
like Athens, Rein has found his work underappreciated. “I
just had some work at a coffee shop downtown, which is
known for having local art on the walls. It was up for two
months, and probably nine of the pieces they ended up
taking down. They weren’t even, in my opinion, too risqué.
They were a few of the tamer video game–style pinups
I have,” he says. Even the convention circuit has given
him roadblocks. While the Salt Lake Tattoo Convention
continues to be his favorite and “the most successful one”
he’s had commercially, he is a frequent attendant of video
game and nerd-culture conventions, whose family-friendly
environments tend to frown upon the word “penis” blasted
across a banner in their convention halls, leading Rein
to consider alternative branding in the future to allow
him to reach a wider audience. Rein’s Paper Thin Designs
employs the same techniques as his other works, but for
commissioned designs like family portraits and wedding
invitations. Balancing the two opposing concepts gives
him a creative palate-cleanser that keeps him from getting
burned out as an artist.
While he sells a fair share of art online, Rein is also a big
fan of taking commissions from people who love his style.
“I’m working on a T-shirt right now for a company: It’s a
spoof on the Kanye West song ‘Niggas In Paris,’ that
will have Kanye and Jay-Z having sex with Paris Hilton.
I love getting commissions through P is for Penis. Usually,
those people are pretty open-minded, they’re very vocal,
they’ve got fun ideas and they’re not limiting,” says Rein.
This year will be Rein’s fifth anniversary at the Salt Lake
Tattoo Convention, traveling with longtime friends and
clients at Pain and Wonder Tattoo out of Athens. Stop by the
convention from March 22–24 at the Salt Palace and check
out more of Rein’s work at thepisforpenis.com.
The eclectic Keith P. Rein
works with a variety of
mediums to execute his
unique artwork.
Photo: Lydia Hunt
Slaughterhouse Starlets:
Emma S. by Keith P. Rein
18 SaltLakeUnderGround slugmag.com 19