Artist 129
Oilvié Keck Painting Bold
Olivié Keck (born 1989) is a South African artist who lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She employs a diverse range of techniques in the service of her ideas: Her concept dictates the medium – selected from an expanding repertoire including printmaking, embroidery, quilting, ceramics and koki drawings.
Keck’s themes centre on the digital landscape and new perceptions of romanticism and intimacy that it has spawned; as well as the theatre of human behaviour and a celebration of the ordinary.
The resultant body of work is one that relishes playful experimentation, bold colour and subversive, witty storytelling.
Keck also moonlights as a professional illustrator – affording her a creative overlap she enjoys from both an aesthetic and philosophical point of view, flippantly dismissing the distinction between ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ art.
“Keck uses a variety of mediums to estrange people from the ‘commonplace’ narratives that her subjects portray. She relishes in loud colours, juxtaposing ideas, jumbling associations and subverting expectations. The materiality and aesthetics of her work commemorate the theatre of human experience, whilst echoing her fascination with popular culture, intimacy and contemporary story-telling.” - MOCAAC
In the artist’s own words from her website:
"I'm a bit of creative juggler. I like using a variety of mediums (drawing, printmaking and ceramics) to estrange people from the ‘commonplace’ narratives that my subjects portray, to keep the viewer looking with delighted eyes. I relish loud colours, juxtaposing ideas, jumbled associations and subverting expectations. There’s a ‘pleasure spiked with pain’ feeling about most of the work I make. This is a sensation I feel captures my experience of the world. Humans are never fully in one attitude; and I’d like to think my work echoes both the severity and the humor in this sentiment."
Her work is bold and bright and her combination of illustration line work creates for beautiful settings with darker motifs within.
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