By Marty Sabota
Lightning Bear Productions

Multimedia artist Keith Clementson enjoys creating unusual works of art.

“I’m visually fascinated with even simple, common objects – a dead leaf or a tin can,” said the 51-year-old artist. “I learned my craft so I can transfer ideas I get from these objects out of my head and onto a canvas.”

He strives for unusual venues, too.

“I’ve lived a typical bohemian lifestyle,” Clementson said. “I’ve shied away from showing in galleries.”

His creativity has led to “out-of-gallery” displays ranging from artworks set up in fields to be admired by people on rented horseback to filling up a wall on the side of a trailer with some of his paintings and “driving it around.”

One of his two outdoor exhibits was at White Rock Lake in Dallas, which involved sculptures of model homes and floor plans linked with oil paintings to draw comparisons between pairs–heaven and earth, human bodies and houses, churches and homes.

“The horseback experience gave people a chance to be a kinetic part of the artwork through a false sensation of elevated status,” Clementson said. “I got the idea for the horseback theme because my father was a rancher and my Texas roots are in my blood.”

So when Denton resident Clementson and his wife ventured after a movie into a local coffee and wine bistro and saw an entire wall dedicated to art, he knew he had found something special.

Café Du Luxe is Denton’s newest and most exciting coffee and wine bistro. The café offers private label coffees, some of the world’s finest wines and a menu featuring breakfast pastries, sandwiches, salads, soups, evening appetizers and decadent desserts. In addition to treating the sense of taste and smell, Café Du Luxe offers a visual treat.

While some coffee cafés may feature a local artist from time to time or dedicate only a limited amount of space for the artist to display his or her talent, Café Du Luxe goes the extra mile. An entire wall of the café has been designated solely for the purpose of featuring some of the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area’s brightest and most exciting artists on a monthly basis.

Clementson arranged with the bistro’s owner, David Carles, to be the featured artist for the month of December. And he’ll have the opportunity to meet his old and new fans at a “meet the artist” event there from 5-7 p.m. Dec. 20.

Four others have had monthly showings, J. Lynn Kelly, Scott Focke, Joan Hart and Emily Penn.

A lifetime of Clementson’s work can be found can be found in private and corporate collections around the world.

His paintings have titles like “Mad Mona,” “Habitats for Planet Dearth,” “I decided to wear pants today after all,” and “Who is ‘They’ anyway?”

The self-taught artist was born in Corpus Christi in 1958 and lived in San Antonio for more than 30 years, during which he attended Alamo Heights High School.

He worked in the oil field for one year and intermittently for another four years from 1981 to 1985. He attended Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of Texas at Austin.

“My abstract and conceptual oeuvre is extensive, dating back to 1975,” the artist said.

“I love many types of art, but my heart is in the abstract and conceptual because it’s so hard to do,” he said. “You start with a blank wall and it’s difficult to pull off, so it’s much more rewarding.

“Realism is like copying what God’s already put out there,” he added.

How far can he divert from realism?

One of his offbeat works is a 3-D bird’s-eye aerial view of a residential home. The artwork is covered in splatter paint and glass beads with a perimeter of Christmas lights.

On the more subdued side, he has been painting portraits professionally since 1984.

“Although most of my work in the last 20 years or so has been conceptual or abstract – devoted to symbolism relating to the last line of Psalm 23 – I have, over the course of a lifetime, completed literally hundreds of portraits for as many happy clients,” Clementson said.

”I now live in Denton with my amazing wife,” he said.

The artist’s journey to Denton has not been a smooth one.

It began without a hitch in 1993, when he moved to Dallas after receiving a commission from Dallas Business Committee for the Arts and Central Dallas Commission. He was chosen the sole winner of a statewide contest to do artwork on glass store fronts on a downtown building, the old Mercantile Bank Building.

The project, called “Windows of Opportunity,” featured, among other things, a swimming pool theme.

After that successful venture, Clementson received a grant to open and operate a studio gallery in Dallas, Y Gallery. He opened in 1994.

Three years later, cancer struck.

“I pulled through, but I closed the gallery,” Clementson said.

Several personal crises, including the death of his parents from cancer, helped rob him of his creative edge.

The self-described “carefree, bohemian artist” put down his brush.

“I was disillusioned,” the artist said.

In 1999, he had a reawakening.

“I picked up a brush again and started going at it,” Clementson said. “Somehow I caught fire and I haven’t stopped since.”

Café Du Luxe owner Carles is excited about giving Clementson a local venue to showcase his talent.

“I think it’s great that artists coming into the café are recognizing the opportunity to be showcased and that they can be a part of something unique,” Carles said.