1 minute read
Ellie Keane
Most likely to start their own gallery
My name is Ellie Keane, I am from the Bay Area in California and am studying Art with a concentration in photo media at the University of Washington. I have always loved using creative thinking and having a creative outlet to resort to, whether that be photography, crocheting, painting/drawing, music, or fashion. Photography has always remained a constant within my scholastic and personal life. Photomedia has allowed me to express myself in an unapologetic way, bringing humor, playfulness, and experimentation into my projects. I now enjoy the retrospective approach I have taken to photography, approaching my practice in a way that values experimentation and immediate emotions, encouraging my audience to leave the realm of academia when experiencing my work.
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Ellie,
When I think of your work, I immediately think of how much your work has evolved since I first saw it from Autumn Quarter Art 440. I initially became interested in your pursuit to blur the lines between different methods of presentation when you uniquely displayed your video project on blank canvases. Watching you experiment with your work over time really emphasizes how you value the viewer experience and how unexpected and comedic elements play into your work. In your latest work, you combined it all to create an incredible visual experience. Each clip serves to draw the viewer’s attention to a specific movement while also being subtle enough for viewers to come back and want to view it again. Overall, Ellie, you strive to create visually appealing pieces of art that create confusion between two and three dimensions and I find that very captivating
Art as fun, art as confusion, art as funky, art as Ellie Keane! I can’t help but be excited and inspired by every piece you have shown. The way you use color, movement, form, and everything in between has a flare that is uniquely you!
Throughout each quarter of classes we have had together, your work challenged my own understanding of what photography and video can be by choosing exciting and unexpected elements from projections on top of images to unique props – like bugs! I feel like the video you displayed in the Jacob Lawrence this May is a great representation of your creative mind. The video is both playful and mind-bending, the images replace, represent, and actively participate in an artist’s personal space. Your ability to distort the process of art-making entirely by photographing, printing, distorting, re-photographing, and repeating made the still image a time-based piece, and a video an image. For me, it truly represents the phrase, “I wish I thought of that.” Nonetheless, your work proves that art can be fun, frustrating, adventurous, and exciting all at the same time and I am so excited to see what is next!
