Statement 2024
The Exhausted Image

‘Hyperreality refers simply to an image that has been altered from the thing it's supposed to represent or a replica of something that never actually existed.
Simulacrum A term from Greek Platonic philosophy that meant a copy of a copy of an ideal form.
In postmodernist thought, particularly through the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard, the term has been revived in the context of arguments about the relationship between an original work of art and its replication. For Baudrillard the simulacrum takes precedence over the original, with the effect that the original is no longer relevant.’
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/simulacrum

Since the dawn of the internet the accessibility of information has accelerated to the point of overwhelming visual melt down. The constant stream of information and images feed into the voracious techno-documentation of the self.
The question is where the truth of what we see really lies? This practice is interested in theories such as ‘simulation’ and ‘hyperreality’ these offer a conflicting dynamic between notions of artificial and the real. These ideas are explored through images which are constructed using digital technologies and more recently expressed through traditional oil painting techniques, both mediums becoming increasingly entwined.
We are interested to investigate ways in which inanimate objects can trigger emotional responses and seem to hold a sense of presence or life. Employing familiar everyday objects and combining them in unfamiliar and contradictory scenarios to explore the weird and strange through the notion of the uncanny.

Artist Biography 2024

MA Fine Art Candidate. 2021/22

Having graduated in 2015 with a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art Keenan has continued to push and develop her practise. She was selected by her University to represent them in the Contemporary Visual Arts Network ‘Platform’ programme 2015 at ASPEX Gallery. Her solo show was developed during the summer after her Graduation at the invitation of the Cultural Programme Curator at The James Hockey and Foyer Gallery. ‘Vermilion Hue’ was shown in the Autumn of 2015. She was funded by the Recent Graduate Bursary awarded by her University.

Keenan has collaborated with the Whipple Museum in Cambridge and the results of her project with them ‘Strange Chimera’ was shown in the museum as part of Cambridge University’s Science Festival 2017. The culmination was an artist talk delivered within the Museum as part of the Festival programme, kindly funded by University of Cambridge Museums. Last year she was nominated to submit a proposal for the Jerwood ‘Survey’ show.

She is an associate of ASPEX Gallery in Portsmouth last year she was offered the Platform Residency at ASPEX and was resident in the space for three months. Keenan recently has become an associate of CAS in Andover; she was an active participant in the Laboratory of Dissent at Winchester School of Art which was delivered by the CAS artist associates at the end of 2019. Funded and supported by Arts Council England.

2022 projects include a site specific group show at Jane Austen's House Chawton UK and screening @ Tate Modern London for #surrealismeveryday
show.
2023 Live screening of experimental film 'Glass Kawaii !!' @ Shanghai Museum of Glass