Mirror stick study

source: erinokeefe

Erin O’Keefe is a visual artist and architect based in New York City and New Brunswick, Canada. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornell University and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University.

I am a visual artist and an architect, and my work is informed by both of these disciplines. My background in architecture is the underpinning for my art practice, providing my first sustained exposure to the issues and questions that I currently contend with in my photographs. The questions that I ask through my work are about the nature of spatial perception, and the tools that I use are rooted in the abstract, formal language of making that I developed as an architect.

As a photographer, I am interested in the layer of distortion and misapprehension introduced by the camera as it translates three dimensional form and space into two dimensional image. This inevitable and often fruitful misalignment is the central issue in my practice.
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source: momaps1org

Artist’s Statement
My work operates in the terrain between two dimensional representation and three dimensional space. My photographs examine space and place. I understand space as an objective formal construct; a phenomenon of light and vision. I understand place as a site of memory and desire, informed by history and culture. In my work, I arrange different places in unexpected spatial relationships. These often incongruous adjacencies create new meanings and associations. In my most recent work, I insert photographic images of other spaces within the space of my studio. These images become part of a constructed still life tableau.

Bio/Resume
Erin O’Keefe is an artist living and working in New York City. She is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the New York Institute of Technology, in addition to her fine art career. Her work is in museum and corporate collections including the San Francisco MOMA and the Progressive Corporation.