My artwork seeks to express feelings of uncertainty and hope. I attempt to convey this through the visual tensions between hard edged regular forms such as blocks, and their disordered arrangement. This tension is heightened through various lighting and color schemes.  Architectural, landscape, and art historical forms inform my subject matter.
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I am drawn to structures that are collapsed, abandoned, or under construction as symbols for hubris, failure, and the persistence to 'try again' in life. Sometimes I compare or contrast these structures to forms I associate with my personal search for spiritual faith, hope and purpose. These forms could be abandoned ruins, mysterious rock formations of the American southwest, the great Catholic churches of Europe, or references to my jewish family background.

The use of hard edged angular forms in my paintings reflect a desire for order, control and certainty in life. However, their entangled and precarious condition suggests disorder, fragility, tentativeness, confusion and doubt.

This tension is further presented in the contrast between representational painting and the graphic, flat, or abstracted elements within each work.

I consider these artworks autobiographical but, in a way, they are also a vehicle of self-suppression. While in the studio I listen to audiobooks of history, philosophy, art, and religion. Although I’m a musician I rarely listen to music while working. I’d rather learn an obscure bit of history while focusing on making a straight level line than be distracted by thoughts of self, or memories of failures and personal losses. The architectural forms, the landscape, the contrasts between light and shadow, are all parts of myself reinterpreted in impersonal, academic, or even formalist terms. For me, art making is part of a ‘born again’ experience, becoming free of the burden of personal shame and guilt.  ​
 
- Donald Keefe

© 2009 - 2023
  Donald Keefe