About
“I'm an artist who wishes to tell you a visual story.”
Van Gogh's Dream, Book Object, George Mason University, Fenwick Library, Special Collections
Plaster casts of two ears and a paintbrush which are painted in gold, rest on a raised platform inside a cardboard box with moveable sides. Two small photographic etchings of portraits of Van Gogh and quotes from his letters to his brother Theo are glued to the sides of the box on the inside. Blue irises in oil paint decorate both the inside and the outside of the box, as well as the lid.
Artwork is created to bring a spectator into the world of the artist’s imagination—a world where the viewer can participate and relate to the narration depicted in my art. A reaction is always what I am interested in evoking; whether it is joy, understanding, humor, or even controversy.
I enjoy making tangible, permanent objects; items that are not so easy to toss away in a consumer driven society. It is important that my prints and book objects expresses a commonality of human experiences. My work seeks to address universal issues confronted by all individuals over a lifetime; namely those of love, origin, isolation, spirituality and comfort.
In my work, certain symbolic elements have developed into a visual vocabulary. Birds, hands, materials from nature, antique photographs, butterflies, playing cards and spirals are all elements that perform an important role in my pieces. Freedom, chance, the natural lifecycle, and the human spirit are all themes that these objects reflect.
My pieces are an exploration of memory in relationship to real time. My work addresses the need to bear all and the desire to be heard through its tactile quality with the goal being to create a universal sense of self-discovery.
---K. McAleer-Keeler