Elsa Marie Keefe
patreon
Graduate School Portfolio
🕑 Added 2023-12-30 21:23:13 +0000 UTCI wanted to share some of the images that I am submitting for graduate school. I couldn't include everything here due to 'community guidelines' and censorship online... but hopefully i'll be able to share my work in galleries, museums and my next fine art book soon. Thank you all for your support during this time. Here are some of the captions to describe these works:
Complete Portfolio List
- The Most Dangerous Animals -- 2023, 12x15,' Digital Photography on canvas' with paint, tarot cards and blood — This is my largest work of art to date. Hanging between the railings in my studio, I finished it just a few days before moving out in the autumn of 2023. Merging humans, animals, paint and objects was an extremely cathartic process. I was able to walk and crawl around the canvas on the floor and paint with my body, one of my preferred methods of working. The scope of this art, when seen in person, is quite inspiring. This piece included images from my ongoing nude in nature collection which I collaged onto the larger canvas. I added paint, tarot cards and my own blood to complete the piece. I would like to be creating at this scale or even larger where possible.
- Bodies as Land - 2023, 40x60,” Mixed Media (digital photography on canvas and wooden panel with paint, crystals, stones, starfish, shells, bones, sea urchin, encased in resin) - This recent work is emblematic of my current art practice; using photos at the core of a mixed media piece. I took this image at a nude women's healing circle and photoshoot that I personally produced last summer. This size, style, and method of creation is similar to many of my mixed media works. I collect objects while outside in nature, grounding, earthing, and immersing myself in the elements. I add the collected objects onto the photograph to bring nature into the frame in a very visceral sculptural way. The resin safely holds the many delicate objects in place, while creating a very tactile and durable final piece.
- Anamnesis — 2022, 13x19,” Digital Photograph on Hahnemuhle Matte Fine Art Paper with blood and gold paint in gold frame — Anamnesis means remembering what the soul already knows. There was a deep understanding in the air that day, a sort of remembering in the art, both in the making and viewing. This was an impromptu self-portrait taken with two other artist friends and after taking this image, we made some prints and painted them with Ally's blood. The coagulation created uniquely beautiful and magical lines on the bodies when viewed up close. This was my first time intentionally painting with blood.
- We are Gods, circle No. 1 — We are Gods, circle no. 1 — 2023 — 24” diameter — digital photograph on canvas and circular wooden panel with gold and nude paint — This is a piece that is part of my ‘We are Gods’ series. Gods, goddesses, and angels are inside and walk among us all. The gold paint around each human in this series alludes to renaissance times and the eternal alchemy of mankind. The original image was captured with a drone during a music video healing circle shoot.
- Feel / what is art? (not pictured here) — F E E L more / what is Art? — 2023, 19x13" x 2 — two page spread in my second hand stitched sumo book, actual images size 13x19” inside book size 15x21” — (see video about sumo books in portfolio) — part of my portable studio, experimental work surrounding the vulva project / ‘natural sex’ — self-portraits of my vagina with roses and paint, watercolor and words
- Gods Children are Not for Sale, (not pictured here) 2022, 13x19” — digital photograph, This image from a family friendly naturist retreat in Palm Desert caused all of my instagram accounts to be taken down and my website deleted. I was accused of being a child pornographer and received death threats from strangers. The title of this piece is a quote from the film, The Sound of Freedom which is a documentary on the incredibly disturbing topic of child trafficking. When does art stop being art?
- Dreams - 2023 -40x60" — digital photograph on canvas and wooden panel with paint — One of my greatest desires is to photograph alongside wild animals. I connect with animal spirit guides in my daily practices and have taken pictures of myself with wild horses in California and giant sea turtles in Hawaii. My goal is to safely (and respectfully) juxtapose the most dangerous animal (humans), alongside other wild and dangerous animals to illustrate the often ironic dichotomy between predator and prey.
- Sensory Deprivation - 2020 - 48x60” — Mixed Media (digital photograph on canvas and wood with paint, snakeskin, cacti, flowers, leaves, crystals and resin) — This piece is one of my first larger scale mixed media pieces, now labeled the ‘Genesis' collection or series. The photograph, like so many, has a rich and sublime back story filled with serendipity from a Mexican Cenote many moons ago. A few years later I created the physical mixed media piece using natural and personal elements such as a rattlesnake skin which has its own story.
- Salvation - (see video on vimeo) 2022 - physical fine art coffee table book, designed digitally before self-published printing - video — 13x11” — ‘Salvation’ is my most recent self-published coffee table book that was released in 2022, made up of 240 double-sided pages. It includes a variety of my nude in nature fine art photography from roughly 2019-2022. ‘Delirium’ was the first book that I created on this scale which included much of my earlier work from the beginning of my career. These books include a raw image or two from each shoot, along with words, quotes, memories and translations from over the years. Instead of providing an image from the book, I included a short film of flipping through the book, giving a more comprehensive demonstration of the object. These books provide a tactile and accessible way to experience my art. Visitors to my home and studio routinely pick them up and flip from cover to cover, pausing on the images that most intrigue them.
- Collective Liberation - 2021 - 48x60” — digital photograph on canvas, adhered to wooden panel with paint, oil pastel and resin —This image was captured at my first open call nude women's photoshoot that I hosted in Manhattan, NY. It was a cold fall day and only seven people out of the twenty something that rsvp'd because of the rain and periods. As always, it was perfect and extremely healing. I climbed a tree to get this angle as it was long before I had a drone. I printed it for my large mixed media collection, however I added the final layer of paint as it was hanging on a gallery wall during a show in Brooklyn.
- Origin of Man - 40x60” - 2022 - Digital Photograph on Canvas and Wood with Crystals, Paint, Snakeskin, Bones, Flowers, Leaves and Resin — This is the first piece from the Vulva Project that I made into a larger mixed media piece. This entire project and series has been so incredibly cathartic for me and everyone who sees it. All of life stems from this natural sacred place, and yet it has become popular to cut, shape, transform the sexual organs of women in America... Why? Because of shame? I have had many conversations and held space with so many women and even men as tears have been wept realizing the beauty of one another and ourselves. It all starts with the origin of man.
- Color, Play, Experimentation - sedona with lines - 2023 - 13x19” - digital photo on paper with paint - This is a recent sample of a simple, playful, experimental piece. I have been exploring the process of painting over photographs for almost twenty years, and it continues to be a source of joy. This self-portrait could also be part of the Vulva Project. There has always been a great deal of crossover and interplay between my works, processes and productions.
- Multiplicity of Selves [Pioneertown I.] - 2023, 40x60”, digital photograph, One of my series is called 'Multiplicity of Selves,' which looks at the multiple personalities or 'sides' of our self that we all experience on the inside and outside. From peace, love, liberation to anger, rage, fear, to disillusionment, how many ways do we present ourselves? The intention here is to show the beauty and depth in the multiplicity, the coherence in the chaos
- Cave of the Heart & We are the Earth — (see video on vimeo - link just share here on patreon)
Handmade Sumo Book Collection sample film -- camera, book board, paper, needles, paint, glue, wheat, wax thread— 2023 — 15x21” -- This video depicts two of my most recent large scale, handmade, coptic bound, sumo books. It speaks about the process a bit while also showing some details of the creation. These books are an important part of my art practice and therapy. Health and wellness are inherently connected to my work, and this hands-on creative approach is just one example of the healing aspects of the art. ‘Remember the Hand’ - Paulus Berensohn - Keep Swimming — 2021 - 30x40” - digital photograph (mixed media and canvas) This image was captured in a Cenote in Tulum and has been described as contemporary baroque. Delfi moves very slowly underwater so the fish don't move and even come to her. I have a pair of mixed media productions (30x40" and 11x14”) utilizing this image with palm leaves and opals atop the photo along with paint and resin. This is just the raw image as it has been printed and produced in multiple ways, including a large photo on stretched canvas.
- The root of everything - (not pictured here) 2023 -13x19” - digital photograph — This self-portrait was taken in California, November 2023. I used to hate guns, now I’m learning to shoot so I can kill my own food. I’m working on a short film called the Mindful Carnivore that touches on this topic. When I was married in Miami during some challenging times, the man I was then married to was telling extremely disturbing stories of his past. He described a woman taking one of his guns and putting it in her vagina, threatening to shoot herself. This memory keeps returning in waves. I’m redeveloping, discovering and re-establishing my relationship to sex, death and guns. I am rewriting my past, making sense of the chaos through my work.
- Innervisions - 2023 — 19x13” — digital photograph on archival paper with acrylic paint — This self-portrait was taken in California in Spring 2023 with cacti, one of my favorite plants to spend time with. I painted this image months later in the snow-covered mountains of Vermont while trying to readjust to nature and isolation. The musician I was staying with gave me two records to look at, one called Innervisions by Stevie Wonder and the other called The Natch'l Blues by Taj Mahal. I studied the imagery on the covers and painted these shapes based on the music playing around me and the colors and shapes on the album covers. Although there may be some controversy with the native shapes that are shared here, we are all native to planet earth.
- Desert Dream sample (not yet available to public) 11:11 Short Film — digital video — 2023 — this video relays memories from my past, thoughts and feelings surrounding dreams, nightmares and realities filled with illusion, delusion, darkness and light. When I was 25 and 26, I began telling people stories of what happened in the past few years and what I was experiencing in life. Almost everyone I spoke to, eyes wide, exclaimed that I need to write a book for I’ve lived dozens of lifetimes within just a few years. In so many ways I’m shocked that I’m alive today. So much happened. I make sense of my experiences through my art, writing and experimental films such as this one. Layer based editing allows for the mind to relate to the many many layers of reality in each moment, experience, day, week, month and year. This film, as so many of my works of art could be edited for lifetimes, however, perfection is the enemy of success? What is the saying? Of completion. I’m still working through so many memories and experiences through writing and editing my books, films and images.
- Color People (see post on patreon)— 2023 — 40x60” — digital photograph This is part of my series with humans covered in colored hand prints / body paint. I had a vision in a dream over ten years ago of a woman, who may have been myself, and a group of women in front of a waterfall. This is an ongoing subsection of my greater body of work. Body paint has been an accessible way for women and men to pose nude in photographs without feeling extremely vulnerable if they haven't done it before. This image was taken during a new moon women's healing circle and photoshoot during the summer 2023 in the Hudson Valley.
- This BODY 2023 —(see vimeo for full film) 3:33 length (beginning crop sampled here) - digital video - Performance Art is also a part of my practice. Whether it be in the city in a cage with people looking in like I'm an animal or whether it be during a performance piece at a show, it is not often that someone is able to view the raw nude form, without surgery, makeup and out of a sexual context. I have begun creating performance pieces in nature and done in my own time, captured on video, and sometimes shared on the Vimeo platform. Ideally I would be moving in a primal way, interpretive dancing, or crawling out of a pile of dirt on the floor of a white washed gallery, but until then, I put this video together to remember the idea and put something out there.
