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Sean O'Keeffe
The Nothing | 2022
The Nothing. @ Combamalong Studios
On a personal level ‘The Nothing’ explores the artist’s own relationship with the people and locations of Kandos and Cementa over time, dating from the first festival in 2013. But ‘The Nothing’ also reacts to a pervasive feeling of undoing, as exemplified by writer Michael Ende in his book The Never-ending Story. As an ongoing series of catastrophic events impact the community, from fire to COVID, the community, like the wider world around it, struggles to adjust to this undoing, this growing emergence of the nothing.
bio:
Sean O’Keeffe is a multi-disciplinary artist who works across a range of media including video, painting and site-specific sculpture. His time-based works reference both formal cinematic history and the history of time-based moving images. His works are concomitant with the act of constant self-documentation and external surveillance. Sean’s work often presents multiple perspectives of the same events, occasionally even distorting a real moment to fit a more subjective memory. Sean’s works was featured in Electro fringe and The Blake Prize. His video work was a finalist in the 2021 Blake Prize and was a Highly Commended finalist in the Blake 2002. Work was also acquired by The ACMI in 2004. He also sculptural installations including the now iconic ‘Bench which is still installed permanently in Broken Hill. As a filmmaker, Sean has worked extensively with young people teaching and producing many award-winning films.
statement:
Sean’s works may be single or multi-channel and often depict a scene or event from multiple views. His most recognised work explores real life moments or events that have been recorded through patient observation of people and situations. This interest in Le moment decisive might align him with the practices of early realist photography and he employs practices that are common to the observational documentary style and Cinéma Vérité.
Combamalong Studios
bio:
2019: The Greeting, Videowork Commission, Liverpool NSW; Resilience in Times of Adversity: Contemporary Responses to WW2and Post WW2 in the Blue Mountains, Blue Mountains City Art Gallery; Mapping, Breamar Gallery Springwood. 2018: The Tree, Northumberland Arcade Residency, Liverpool; Imperceptible Resistances, Everglades, Blue Mountains; Clandulla State Gallery Survey Show; Conversations, Gang Gang Gallery. 2017: Explorers Narratives of Site, Woodford Academy; Cementa 17 Kandos; MAP-Kiosk Katoomba. 2016: Fishers Ghost Art Prize, Winner Photography section; WAS Biennale, MAP The Club Edition, The Slab, Hazelbrook; Recluse, GAFFA Artspace Sydney; Cardinal Points, Gallery North, Sydney; Modern Art Projects, Homeless, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Katoomba; Modern Art Projects, Medlow Bath. 2015: Gold to Spin, West Artspace Hazelbrook; Cementa 15 Kandos; 2013 Landscape Transference Project, Palo Alto California; Cementa 13 Kandos. 2012: Works from the Collection Grafton Regional Art Gallery. 2010: Blake Prize Touring Exhibition. 2009: Blake Prize for Religious Art; National Art School Electrofringe 2009, Newcastle.
statement:
Sean O’Keeffe explores screen and fine art cultures through a variety of mediums including video, sculpture and 2-dimensional work. His work has employed and responded to the imagery and conventions of cinema ranging from the language and tropes of the screen to the technical structures and mechanics of filmmaking: In recent works, many created collaboratively with performer-devisor Carolyn Eccles under the collective banner Darkroom, Sean has used this approach to investigate the subjective pluralities of written and percieved histories. Sean often works collaboratively with communites including young people, aged care residents, and school students to produce his screenworks. He is a long-term resident of the Blue Mountains and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
Cognitive Dissonance | 2015
Cognitive Dissonance. @
bio:
statement:
This video work references iconic 1980 cult film, The Chain Reaction, and uses fan films to explore visual ideas about Australian cinema and the changing social structure of Kandos. The project involved collaboration with different community groups including local teenagers and members of the local dramatic society, The Twin Town Players.
