Ken Beck's paintings reflect his background as an artist and an anthropologist. His subjects, from lemons to gravestones to men's heads, are viewed at close range in an abstract space. The objects are imbued with personality-- their color, size, and texture richly enhanced. His work embodies a consistent involvement with the human form, eroticism, playfulness, and abstraction. Beck recently completed work on "Official and Authentic," a portfolio that presents, in ten lithographs, a retrospective of images from 1983 to 1998. His work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Boston Public Library, and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, among many others. Beck's work is currently being shown at Gallery NAGA in Boston.