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Oops! Out of Bounds
Transgressing Social Boundaries
Oops! Out of Bounds
Transgressing Social Boundaries
Boundaries, as opposed to borders, are barriers that seal off territory. Borders are edges of things where interactions occur, but to trespass over a boundary is a violation. My series, Oops! Out of Bounds, explores social boundaries, territories, and the nature and results of transgression. This is expressed primarily, and symbolically, as loss of the Mother, and betrayal of the Father.
Although the paintings have a nostalgic, lush, and dreamlike quality, it is clearly evident that all is not well. There is a throat slashed, a boy with a gun, a dead cow, a caged hare, and predatory dogs. The animal destined for slaughter is being led by the farmer, the carer, the provider, and trusted father figure. There is historical context to pairing the spilling of blood with the loss of innocence. A dead animal is surrounded by its predators, its killing consummated in a conscious, deliberate, methodical, and brutal fashion.
Transgressing boundaries is often a betrayal of trust and characteristically comes with violence or threats thereof. Vulnerability to such is expressed in Oops! Out of Bounds Untitled 3, where the nurturing and protection of the mother figure is dissolving away.
Transgressing Social Boundaries
Boundaries, as opposed to borders, are barriers that seal off territory. Borders are edges of things where interactions occur, but to trespass over a boundary is a violation. My series, Oops! Out of Bounds, explores social boundaries, territories, and the nature and results of transgression. This is expressed primarily, and symbolically, as loss of the Mother, and betrayal of the Father.
Although the paintings have a nostalgic, lush, and dreamlike quality, it is clearly evident that all is not well. There is a throat slashed, a boy with a gun, a dead cow, a caged hare, and predatory dogs. The animal destined for slaughter is being led by the farmer, the carer, the provider, and trusted father figure. There is historical context to pairing the spilling of blood with the loss of innocence. A dead animal is surrounded by its predators, its killing consummated in a conscious, deliberate, methodical, and brutal fashion.
Transgressing boundaries is often a betrayal of trust and characteristically comes with violence or threats thereof. Vulnerability to such is expressed in Oops! Out of Bounds Untitled 3, where the nurturing and protection of the mother figure is dissolving away.
Icons
Portraiture
Conversations
The origins of this project stemmed from an exhibition at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, called “Conversations”. The concept was an image/text piece based on nine short poems written by Robert Mintz. The paintings by Keogh picked up the main thread of the series, finding the emotional core of the work as a love story, set in nineteen forties France at war.
Poetic references to film noir and the painting “Liberty”, indicated wartime. Making the paintings into a series of storyboards played up the sense of a story. The use of the expression “So long,” instead of goodbye, triggered the concept of forties film. The guy was therefore an American because the expression was characteristic of forties era American film in such uses as “So long buddy,” and being an American in wartime France, was a G.I.
The woman perpetually wears a red dress, emblematic of love. It focuses attention on her and works as a visual ploy to show it’s the same person from frame to frame. Picking up on cinematic devices used during that age, enables it to be suggestive with the dress taken off, hanging over the screen,
Eventually the romance ends and the woman drowns her sorrows in a drunken stupor. People in film of that epoch, especially romantic leads were presented with a high level of perfectionistic gloss. Even in their most dross moments, they seldom became scowling hags. The unexpected candour brings humour even though she manages to maintain a polished level of glamour and beauty.
Poetic references to film noir and the painting “Liberty”, indicated wartime. Making the paintings into a series of storyboards played up the sense of a story. The use of the expression “So long,” instead of goodbye, triggered the concept of forties film. The guy was therefore an American because the expression was characteristic of forties era American film in such uses as “So long buddy,” and being an American in wartime France, was a G.I.
The woman perpetually wears a red dress, emblematic of love. It focuses attention on her and works as a visual ploy to show it’s the same person from frame to frame. Picking up on cinematic devices used during that age, enables it to be suggestive with the dress taken off, hanging over the screen,
Eventually the romance ends and the woman drowns her sorrows in a drunken stupor. People in film of that epoch, especially romantic leads were presented with a high level of perfectionistic gloss. Even in their most dross moments, they seldom became scowling hags. The unexpected candour brings humour even though she manages to maintain a polished level of glamour and beauty.
