Michael O'Keefe

Desiderium Head

2013

The sculpture is painted cast plaster. The dimensions are for the painted cast plaster. The black base dimensions are 2 x 10 x 10 inches. About this body of work: “Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it’s right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of...recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it...” ―William Gaddis, "The Recognitions" “A great deal of my recent work was made during a time when I was reading the great American novel by William Gaddis, "The Recognitions," the most demanding book I’ve ever read. Along the way, I extracted sentence fragments that interested me and I pieced them together to make the titles for the last three years of my work. So, my recent work is linked to Gaddis’ novel through the titles, but also in the theme of “recognition,” which speaks to the nature of my work. I feel my way through various processes until I recognize a possibility―a possibility that is promising in terms of visual dynamics but also in terms of giving a body to some part of my experience. It is my hope that the viewer is compelled to recognize some part of themselves reflected in the work.” —Michael O’Keefe Michael O’Keefe earned his MFA from SMU and currently teaches at The O’Keefe Studio Center in Richardson, Texas. This sculpture was included in "Recognitions," his fifth solo exhibition at Valley House...

In his sculptures, drawings and paintings, Michael O’Keefe employs unpredictable processes as a means to discover content. He couples accident and chance with unconventional methods,...

From Memories of Egypt Series. The figure has always been Deborah Ballard’s muse in her sculptures. Ballard works in bronze, cast stone, and plaster; her figures ranging from life-s...

The figure has always been Deborah Ballard’s muse in her sculptures. Ballard works in bronze, cast stone, and plaster; her figures ranging from life-size to hand-size. Ballard says...

The figure has always been Deborah Ballard’s muse in her sculptures. Ballard works in bronze, cast stone, and plaster; her figures ranging from life-size to hand-size. Ballard says, ...

“Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it’s right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of...recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it...

Biomorphic and earthy yet industrial style wall sculpture, shelf sculpture or tabletop sculpture. Abstracted face sculpture made with concrete, pigment and wire. The piece is smoot...

Medium: Wood, steel, pigment As an artist I strive to create elegant sculptures that capture the true essence of the subject matter. Form, line and surface are used as the visual la...

Medium: Wood, steel, pigment (Wall hung) As an artist I strive to create elegant sculptures that capture the true essence of the subject matter. Form, line and surface are used as ...

Stone and metal, usually granite or slate, and found object steel are central in my sculpture. The interaction of these materials is a major focus. On the most basic level, the work ...

Text by Nancy Webb It’s Saturday night and Karine Payette is in her studio. We meander into a conversation about the dog she used to have and her soft spot for German shepherds, an intensely obedient and loyal breed in a deceivingly wolf-like package. Payette’s most recent series of photographs, sculptures and video work seem to speak directly to this preoccupation with the multifaceted nature of human-animal relationships—the dialogues of control, intimacy, violence and domestication that subtly take place on an interspecies level. Her workspace is part laboratory, part prop closet—a bowl of fur sits not far from her computer. Somehow in this bright, open, chemical-clean scented room, Payette conjures wildness. We are taken to a strange place, the borderlands of interspecies mingling. At one extreme of the animal-human dynamics scale is the stalwart compliance of a professionally trained German shepherd who responds to commands with robotic precision. Here, power is comfortably held by an off-screen voice, animality pacified by a set of linguistic prompts. At the other end of the scale is a sculpture of a human figure clad in red, sharing a languorous kiss with a wolf. The story of Little Red Riding Hood is immediately called to mind, except that here our hooded protagonist seems to have bailed on grandmother’s orders, instead opting for a forest floor make-out with her canine stalker. This taboo mise-en-scène is a brazen inquiry into the boundaries we maintain with our animal counterparts. Its scale and three-dimensionality contribute to a feeling of immersion that the artist has been courting with her work for the past several years. It feels as though you’ve just walked in on something: you are implicated and your discomfort is like an invisible mist that coats these inanimate beings. Elsewhere in Payette’s suite of anthropomorphic works, the demarcation between species grows even fainter. A photographic series depicts the slow encroachment of fur, scales and feathers on human skin—a striking process of contamination facilitated by touch. The fusion of flesh, charcoal cat fur and a pale silky dress...

Dusty Rose Sage (2022), terracotta concrete abstract face sculpture, metal wire Biomorphic and earthy yet industrial style wall sculpture, she...