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Margaret Keller

From the River to the Sea

2005
oil on wood
36"x 36"

"Bend" 36"x 36" oil on panel	"Tilt" 36"x 36" oil on panel	"Whirl" 36"x 36" oil on panel	"Red Bud" 36"x 36" oil on panel
"Merge" 36"x 36" oil on panel	"Silent Season" 36"x 36" oil on panel	"Soar" 54"x 36" oil on panel	"Morning - Bayou Teche" 36"x 36" oil on panel

Margaret Keller Moments before dawn, a special light illuminates nature. These few seconds before sunrise are when the woods seem silent and expectant. Both a sense of serenity and of possibility fill the air; there is a surging sense of nature’s energy balanced by an aura of peacefulness. I am interested in the mood felt when surrounded by the woods at this point in time. I use many black and white photographs, plus color photographs, to catch this moment. These photographs, along with sketches, form a source material which I then manipulate and refocus to create these paintings. Technically the paintings require a great deal of time to create with at least six layers of paint built up ˇn each area. I keep translucent pigments in their transparent state and opaque pigments in their opacity and integrate together strokes of the two types paint. Glazing over an alternately brilliant white ground and a subtly tinted ground helps create a strong sense of light. In part, these paintings derive from a period when I lived on 400 acres of pristine forest populated by wild turkey, geese and deer. In these woods, even when the silence is complete and the woods seem empty, nature is always expectant with life and light. EDUCATION 1989, Master of Fine Arts, Washington University, St. Louis, MO  Painting, Drawing, Printmaking Bachelor of Arts, Magna Cum Laude, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1975, Drawing, Painting, Art History SELECTED GALLERIES AND MUSEUMS 2001, Gwenda Jay/Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL 2001, Contemporary Art Workshop - Publicus - Chicago, IL 2001, Venus Envy, Lemp Brewery Gallery, St. Louis 2000, Contemporary Art Workshop Gallery, Chicago, IL 2000, Sabbatical Exhibition, Meramec Gallery, St. Louis Community College 2000, Inform 6, curated exhibition at The Lemp Brewery Gallery, St. Louis 2000, Colleagues, joint exhibition of art faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and St. Louis Louis Community College 2000, It’s About Time, curated exhibit at Meramec Gallery, St. Louis Community College 2000, Of World and Self, curated by Olivia Gonzalez of The Saint Louis Art Museum, Prints, Drawing and Photographs Department, at Innsbrook 2000, Landscape - Des Lee Gallery, Washington University, St. Louis 2000, Gardens - Park Avenue Gallery, St. Louis 2000, Revision of Paradise - Sabbatical Exhibition Maryville University, St. Louis 1999, Park Avenue Gallery, St. Louis, MO 1998, Art on Paper, 21st Annual National, Juror: Eliza Rathbone, Curator, The Philips Collection, The Maryland Federation of Art Gallery, Annapolis 1998, Colleagues, Invitational, The University of Missouri-St. Louis 1998, The Blessing, American Association of Women in Psychology, Baltimore 1998, Faculty Exhibit, Meramec Art Gallery, St. Louis Community College 1996, Body Images: Reconstructing Feminist Figuration, College Art Association, Boston 1995, United Nations International Women’s Conference, Beijing, China 1995, Passages, Installation, Meramec Art Gallery, St. Louis Community College 1995, Midwest Watercolor Society, Invitational, Portland, IN 1995, The Body in Question-Gender Gaze, Art St. Louis 1994, Expatriates, University Museum, Southeast Missouri State University 1993, Helen Karsh Gallery, Denver, CO 1993, Expatriates, Messing Gallery, St. Louis 1991, Fragments, Bonsack Gallery, St. Louis 1991, Six Artists, Design Center, St. Louis 1990, Art St. Louis, Regional Juried Exhibit, St. Louis 1989, Butler Institute of American Art, 53rd Annual National, OH 1989, Steinberg Gallery, Thesis Exhibit, Washington University 1989, Watercolor USA, Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, MO 1988, Wichita Art Museum, Kansas Watercolor Society Five State Exhibition 1988, National Watercolor Society 67th National, Brea, CA 1988, Art St. Louis IV 1987, Midwest Watercolor Society International Exhibition, Neville Museum, Green Bay, WI 1985, Riverside Museum, Riverside, CA 1985, Tweed Museum, Duluth, MN 1985, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, IN 1985, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 1985, Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts 1984, Neville Museum, Green Bay, WI 1984, Spiva Art Center, Joplin, MO 1984, Brea Cultural Center, Brea, CA   PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 1993- present, Associate Professor of Art, St. Louis Community College at Meramec.  1990-1993, Painting Instructor, Washington University Fine Arts Institute.  1989-1993, Coordinator of Adult Programs in Studio Art, Art History and Lecture Series, The Saint Louis Art Museum.  1985- 1986, Lecturer in Painting, Drawing, Art History, University of Missouri-Rolla.  PUBLIC LECTURES (SELECTED) The Body in Question-Gender Gaze, Art St. Louis Photography in Contemporary German Art: 1960-1990, University of Missouri-St. Louis Contemporary American Art, Fall Honors Lecture, University of Missouri-Rolla Applebroog and Abakanowicz: Designing Women, Washington University Applebroog and Abakanowicz: Art with an Agenda, University of MO-STL Alfred Leslie’s Paintings, The Saint Louis Art Museum Artreach Lecture Series At The Cutting Edge: Contemporary Art Furniture, The Saint Louis Art Museum Islamic Art and Patronage, The Saint Louis Art Museum   SELECTED COLLECTIONS Mark Twain Banks Corporate Collection William Woods College Dominic’s in Clayton Numerous private collections SELECTED REVIEWS St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Landscapes As Far As The Eye Can See”, 7-9-00 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Keller’s Exhibit Worth a Visit to Maryville University”, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Margaret Keller’s Variations on Themes” The New Art Examiner, “Recent Work” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Ideas are the Work” The Riverfront Times, “Review" "Six Artists,"  Essay St. Louis Globe Democrat, “Review” St. Louis Globe Democrat, “Review” SELECTED PUBLISHED ARTICLES Art. St. Louis magazine, “Ken Worley”, Volume 14, Issue 1, Fall 2000 Show Me Missouri Women- Selected Biographies, eight articles, The Thomas Jefferson University Press