marc kehoe paintings

(all images ©marc kehoe 2024) Please Scroll down to view all recent work. If you are interested in purchasing work, contact us

C I HISTORY PROJECT GATE MURAL

SPOOKHOUSE RIDERS

SPOOKHOUSE MURAL

VISIONARY PROJECTS

Coney Island, and the wonderful people there, has been a direct inspiration to me for more than 25 years (particularly the Coney of the '70s-'80s). I have had the opportunity to work with Dick Zigun and Sideshows by the Seashore, as Art Director of the Mermaid Parade, a one-man show at The Coney Island Museum, exhibiting with the Coney Island Hysterical Society (and with artists such as Philomena Marano, and Hazel Hankin)

In the mid-1980s, The Coney Island Hysterical Society was operating The Spookhouse on the Coney Island Bowery-a dark ride modified by artists. They offered me the east wall of the building as a mural site (The CIHS decorated the other side of the building with their own mural the year before). Please scroll down to see "Its Spooky". Among the many characters I was privileged to meet and work with was Denos Vourdaris, the now deceased proprietor of Wonder Wheel Park. Coney was and is fully populated by so many unforgettable people- all of them passionate about Coney.

More recently, participation in the Brooklyn Waterfront Artist's Coalition group exhibition The Art of Coney(2021)I designed the 25th Annual Mermaid Parade poster, , was delighted to participate in the Imagine Coney Municipal Art Society exhibition (please scroll down to see my projects for the re-vitalization of Coney). I also designed and painted, along with Philomena Marano, a pull-down gate for the Coney Island History Project, the ongoing work of Coney Island native and author Charles Denson, and Tricia Vita, Coney's Blogger(Amusing the Zillion) (and a special tip of the hat to Carol Albert).

ITS SPOOKY—12 x 17 foot mural, exterior enamel on plywood, 1986 (destroyed)

Mural on the east side of The Spookhouse, Bowery at Schweikert's Walk(or Nathan's Alley). No longer extant.

	Mural Key (from left): Dick Zigun as a Red Devil, Death, standing in Hell showing a Pretty Lady what is eventually coming, Man strangled by the Serpent of his Own Vanity, Three heads: George, the man who ran the Lambros Sausage Stand to my back as I painted the mural, Richie Cook, C.I. luminary, and Jack Murr, 'Coney Institution' and proprietor of 'One in Wins' across the Bowery from The Spookhouse, at the top a Coney denizen announcing the title of the picture, enraged bees with Mowhawk haircuts, terrified flowers and a terrified meal, riders on a dark ride that isn't in the dark being dumped into the Pit of Hell (I'm in the front car), Cerberus with the heads of Jose (Hysterical Society member and Spookhouse mechanic), Philomena Marano (Hysterical Society founder, along with Eagan) and Ross Steinhardt, Coney native and assistant at Sideshows by the Seashore(and all around good guy), and the full length figure of Richard Eagan, who was the Spookhouse barker and stood out in the Bowery for endless hours (dressed as depicted) inviting paying customers into the darkride(the light bulbs on that little stage have skull head filaments). Landscape above features the ghostly return of the Steeplechase Pavilion, the Parachute Jump at some time in the future and the Jumbo Jet (a Jetsons-style portable roller coaster then on the Bowery) curling down a mountain. The dedication is to the people of Coney Island, in Spanish and in English. This picture was taken just after the unveiling, attended by Dick Zigun and his bass drum, and various other friends, Coney people and journalists. You can see the canvas that I pulled off the mural draping to the right.
	PHOTO COURTESY DOMINIC LOMEDICO ARCHIVE

SPOOKHOUSE RIDERS

A selection of 20 canvases depicting riders on the Spookhouse dark ride. 1987. all oil on canvas 24 x 36 inches

IMAGINE CONEY/ The Municipal Art Society

I recently had the opportunity to submit some ideas to the Municipal Art Society's IMAGINE CONEY project. MAS has done great work making suggestions for the re-devolopment of Coney—as something other than condo towers.

HALF MOON TOWER, WORLD'S TALLEST BUILDING

New York City and Coney Island restore
world skyscraper pre-eminence with the proposal
for The Half Moon Tower.

At 180 stories, The Half Moon Tower will eclipse the
Burj Dubai and reign as the tallest building in the world.
Drawing its design from the classic (and now lost)
historic Half Moon Hotel, The Tower is planned for
The Reigelmann Boardwalk at 18th Street.
Dwarfing Brooklyn's Eiffel Tower,The Parachute Jump
(see illustration), The Tower will be visible
from Pittsfield, MA.

"The Half Moon Tower rhythmically and radically
employs design elements from the original
structure to create a new post-post-post modern vernacular
that is certain to return Coney Island to the world's
architectural spotlight and to raise the entertainment/resort
architectural bar in almost every sense"
—The New York Times

The multi-use structure will include
over 6000 luxury condominiums (including the 65 million dollar
decaplex luxury Spookarama-themed penthouse), the world's
largest salt water jacuzzi, 7 all-weather retail malls: The Luna,
The Dreamland, The Tilyou, The Cropsey, The Kister,
The Zigun and the Ruby's, more than 8000 luxury hotel suites
in the Abe Reles Arms, and a revenue producing observation
deck that will afford a vew of Western Portugal, weather permitting.

Marc Kehoe, NYC, 2008

DREAMLAND TOWER, HISTORIC RECONSTRUCTION LUXURY CONDOMINIUM COMPLEX

LINEAR LUNA

Taking its inspiration from both Corbusier's 'Ville Radieuse' and the classic Coney architecture of Luna Park, Linear Luna would be amost ambitious plan for redevelopment. Requiring the employment of eminent domain and the demolition of all structures from Stillwell to Ocean Parkway and from the Reigelmann Boardwalk to the creek, Linear Luna masterfully blends preservationism and modernism in one massive project.
The aesthetic dissonance created by the recreation of original Luna Park structures and the strict modernist multi-use high rises has been called "masterful."
Running along the Boardwalk for more than a mile, the repeating structures house amusements, attractions, suideshows, off off Broadway theaters, petting zoos, The NY Aquarium, restaurants, retail outlets, farmer's markets, health spas and indoor sports facilities, and, at the restored and dredged Coney Island Creek, multiple re-creations of the original Shoot-the-Chutes. The high-rise structures (highest 93 stories) are composed of big-box chain retail at the ground floor level, corporate 'open floor' office space on the floors above, and thousands of multi-level condo apartments above.

Marc Kehoe, NYC 2008