John Walker

Untitled (Fish Head)

1979

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,...

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...