PRECARIOUS STRUCTURES’
Grief, joy figure into artist’s body of work
Donald Keefe says he’s spent a “whirlwind” three years in Tennessee since arriving to teach painting and drawing at Southern Adventist University. When he got the job offer to become assistant professor of art in the School of Visual Art & Design, he and his wife, Evangelyn, were in the middle of a cross-country transition from California to Florida.
“I had honestly always thought Tennessee would be a nice place to settle,” says the 33-year-old Iowa native, “and my wife had attended Southern for part of her education, so it was a natural choice to come. Since arriving, my wife and I had our first child, and it’s been quite the whirlwind of events, but I think we’re finally getting settled.”
Settling in has given him the chance to plan an exhibition for the John C. Williams Gallery on campus. A collection of his mixed-media drawings and oil paintings will go on view Thursday. The show continues through Feb. 12.
In a news release, Keefe says he is drawn to structures that are collapsed, abandoned or under construction, and he is often inspired by the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.
Here he answers emailed questions about the show, his career as an artist and the appearance of mourning and joy in his works. The exchange has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Tell me more about how the Tower of Babel informs your work.
A: To me, the Tower of Babel story represents an innate desire for order, but also the tendency of things to fall into disorder. They built the tower for unity and security, but it became a monument to confusion and division.
Images of ruined architecture and jumbled blocks in my work suggest a tension between building up and tearing down. I cast these forms in dramatic chiaroscuro or colored light to suggest beauty, hope and, in a nod to Romanticism’s use of light, the presence of the Divine.
Q: This show features mixed-media drawings and oil paintings. Do you use any other media for your art?
A: I do a lot of abstract nonrepresentational composition sketches in my sketchbooks. These are basically doodles, but I really think about the placement and quality of each mark. Sometimes I flesh these out into actual forms. I’d like to collect them for an exhibition some day.
Q: How many works are included in the show?
A: I should have about 15 works in the gallery. The exhibition will be a selection of works made between 2011 and 2018.
Q: How did you choose what to include?
A: There is work selected from a range of years in the show. Since the gallery is an education-oriented gallery, I wanted to have works that show the progression of an idea’s development over several years of iterations. Some works are monochromatic or muted in color, others are black-and-white, some exist somewhere between drawing and painting, and others are colorful oil paintings or reference the digital tools I use in the planning stages.
I think a main division with these works is between black-andwhite and color. For a few years, my work had little color and was mainly focused on architectural ruins in stark contrasts of light and shadow. In personal retrospection, I feel that, with these works, I was in mourning for the passing of my mother and father, each of whom died too young. Now, however, in my newest work, I have brought color back, and the work is beginning to verge almost on abstraction. I have a 1-year-old son at home, Josiah, who brings me much joy, and I think my re-engagement with color is because of him.
Contact Lisa Denton at ldenton@ timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6281.