Holly Keogh
Painting is the tool I use to explore fragility, the malleable nature of personal and collective memory, the ever-increasing permeability of public and private realms, and the intrinsic desire to be adored. In this collection of paintings I synthesize personal experience, history, and popular culture; a British tabloid, my friend smoking at night, and Cindy Crawford all become raw material that I filter through the painting process. I treat the reference material as a starting point from which my own consciousness supplants the subject's personality. Psychologically charged portraits emerge from tension between my will to remember and my power to project. With this treatment the paintings become an invitation to reconstruct instead of narrate. The compositions are closely cropped, and allude to a larger whole outside of the picture frame. The large scale and close crops reflect modern day anxieties that come with constant visibility, and the literal ability to zoom in and scrutinize or obsess.
