Although documenting a fluid process of montage digitally, Keleher manoeuvres these intricately dissected materials by hand in her studio. In a flux of multiple, evolving landscapes, she captures specific moments of juxtaposition. Encapsulating the unique climate and ecology of a space as it unfolds in time, a series of intimate scenes emerge within monumental dioramas.
“I feel like a photographer of the natural world: the microcosm in my studio. I select images to illustrate a point of view, like making a documentary there might be people I’m not showing you, or pollution, cars, spilled oil.This is a dream world, fashioned by my subconscious.”
The dark background is ambiguous, and Keleher describes it variously as ‘the abyss’, ‘material / non-material’ but importantly sees these ecosystems as holistic environments, full of potential. Owls fly noiselessly across the void, a young stag is alert against the pockmarked moonscape, trees thrive at vertiginous angles. This imagined space represents an idea of the world which alters with perspective, sensitive to allusions of myth and religion. Through her fluent physical anthropology, Keleher is creating places of sanctuary. The idea of ‘ecologising’ is central to Keleher’s ongoing postgraduate studies at Dartington. Curator Tracey Warr notes:
“The job of the artist is not to illustrate ecological problems but to produce dreams for society to use”.
I was reminded of Keleher’s mountainous ecoscapes on seeing Bjork’s Wanderlust video: there is an impression of augmented, hyper-reality in both, engaging with appropriated materials, articulating a cross-fertilization of ideas within an idealised space, both personalising and mythologising the present/future. These landscapes are one facet of Keleher’s output which includes performance art, ‘interventions’ and installation. Keleher describes herself as ‘a destroyer of books, I despoil and grab, rip and subvert’ but there are some she embellishes and does not destroy. Drawings, sketches, texts and scribbled ideas turn the pages of these charity shop finds into valuable palimpsests, sketchbooks which demand presentation within her larger projects. These singular artist’s books are things of beauty and a rich resource of interpretive development, although she has yet to work out a method of presentation for this complex layering of aesthetic in her final presentation. Finding a direct route to her audience, to communicate visually rather than verbally, is a continuing preoccupation. Her year of postgraduate study has been an opportunity for Keleher to explore the techniques of her visual language, to experiment and collaborate, to develop new forms of work; these Evolutionary Spaces have become creative trapdoors.
“I never work from a blank sheet any more. I always build on what has gone before, as nature does. Chaos means infinite possibilities, creativity is fractallike.”
The digital rendering of these Ecoscapes calls for larger sizes and bold presentation; the smaller montages (right)personalise these scapes and turn them into stages. There are books, aural-scapes, performances, recordings. A skilled curator could bring Keleher’s imagined worlds alive in the narrative continuum of a white space. Kate JAGO ( Editor of Proof Magazine)
For more information visit http://www.axisweb.org/artist/annakeleher