Document Type

Works of Creativity - Juried

Ambispection: A Solo exhibition of artworks by Donald Keefe

Department

Visual Art & Design

Date of Activity

Fall 10-7-2022

Abstract

Ambispection


Ambispection refers to the consideration of a subject both retrospectively and prospectively. The term also evokes a broader category of inspection: that of introspection and something I call ‘extrospection’ —a preoccupation with what exists outside of oneself. The prefix “ambi” makes one think of ambivert, having equal characteristics of both an intro- and extrovert. There is also a suggestion of the adjectives ‘ambiguous’ and ‘ambivalent’: the double-minded quality of one who is reserving judgement and commitment for when, if ever, enough knowledge is gained to silence all doubt.

The artworks in this exhibition reflect my artistic ambispection. Representational images point the viewer to content that exists beyond the frame of the artwork — things which are being objectively re-presented. Abstraction is art referencing itself; is self-contained and concerned with its own defining qualities. However, abstraction has also been the form which artists have used to present the spiritual and formless, based on subjective feeling and lacking any tangible reference to represent.

In my artworks, historical references and flat graphic elements that acknowledge digital processes, relate to this artistic dualism between representation and abstraction. As artist Mark Tansey illustrated in his A Short History of Modernist Painting series: Painting can conversely be conceived of as a window, a wall, or a mirror. It is the ambivalence of post-modern, contemporary artists (such as myself), to hold all of these points of view at once.

Many of my artworks contain landscape references. Like abstraction, landscape painting has been a vehicle through which artists have attempted to depict the presence of the Divine. This romantic interpretation is furthered by my use of landscapes which are often associated with spiritual mysteries, such as the American southwest. I grew up in that region, and vistas of deserts and mountains are idealized in my memory in the same way as my childhood neighborhood.

These artworks are as much an expression of myself as they are a reflection of the audiobooks of history, biography, and classical literature that I’ve absorbed while working in the studio. For me, art-making, like the ‘game’ of composition, is about balance. My art is not solely a therapeutic dive into the root of some imagined or real neurosis, nor is it a dry academic exercise of rendered forms floating on a canvas with no context, nor is it art for art sake. The act of creating art for me is one of ambispection: a retrospection upon my connection to life, history, religion, and art —and a prospective assertion of my being and individualistic will.

Donald Keefe

2022

Comments

This was a solo exhibition of nine oil paintings, and six mixed media drawings by Donald Keefe at the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) in downtown Chattanooga. The exhibition opened October 7th, and ran until November 18th.

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