Meet The Artist
Michelle Keegan
I was born in Devon to Devonian/Irish parents and moved to romney Marsh in Kent in 1971, where this minimal, barren and beautiful landscape haunts and influences my work.
I studied Fine Art at The Kent Institute of Art and Design, graduating with a 1st class honours.
I continued my postgaduate education at the Slade School of Fine Art.
I have made prints and exhibited widely for the past twenty years. I now run a small print workshop and lecture in Nottingham.
My work begins with place. Locations are selected for their familiarity or chosen by tracing where family members worked and originated from. This personal mapping begins with drawing in situ: these images become the precursors to the final image worked through the process of etching.The working strategy is spontaneous and playful, allowing the images to change in their making, as they become multi layered with new surfaces and ideas, resulting in intricate and complex prints.
The locations allow me to explore a physical response to landscape and engage in a dialogue of questions concerned with belonging, rootedness, liminality, and home. The space between us. The said and unsaid.
My work combines private explorations with public discourses that aim to share something of how I view and experience the world around me.
C.V
BORN: 5th MAY 1966
EDUCATION:
1988.1990 Higher Diploma in Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art, London
1985.1988 BA (Honours) 1st class in Fine Art
Kent Institute of Art & Design
1994-1996 PGCE
Nottingham Trent University
Employment:
1991-present Course Leader in Fine Art, South Nottingham College
1991 Lecturer in Drawing, Hastings College of Art
1990.1991 Lecturer in Printmaking, Kent Institute of Art & Design
1984.1990 Freelance Illustrator for Mike Hibbert Animation
Contracts: BBC, Time of Your Life, You and Me, Channel 4.
Selected Exhibitions
2011 Tarpey Gallery Castle Donnington
Hart Gallery London
Harrington Mill Nottingham In Transit
2010 A4 International Printmakers Competition The Exchange Gallery
Penzance
2009 Hart Gallery London
2008 Hart Gallery London
Grafikens Hus Sweden
2007 Wahle Contemporary Art Print Show
2006 Multiple choice. An exhibition of contemporary printmaking
8 artists exhibiting at Fermyn Woods Gallery
2003 Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery
Walk on Water, Twenty Intaglio Prints
The Djanogly Arts Centre, Nottingham
East Midlands Group Show
1999 Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Bothy Gallery,
West, Twenty Intaglio Prints
1999 The Djanogly Arts Centre, Nottingham
1997/98 Austin/Desmond Fine Art, London
1996 The London Original Print Fair, Royal Academy of Arts,
London. Prints exhibited with Austin/Desmond Fine Art
1994/95 Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
Shades of Grey (four person show, touring programme)
1994 Lethaby Gallery London and Scarborough Art Gallery
The National Open Print Competition & Michael Rothenstein
Trophy
1993 Commission for Routledge Publishers
Four prints for the book Mapping Desire
1992 Nottingham Artists of the Year
1991 The Metropole Arts Centre, Folkestone
Routes, work by four Slade Artists
The Gardener Arts Centre, Brighton
Off the Wall
1991 The Flower Gallery, London - Contemporary Prints
1990 Sandra Higgins Fine Art, London
Gradmarket
Smith Gallery, London
Work by Slade Artists
Open Space, Reading
Slade Printmakers
Maidstone Gallery
Two-person show, sponsored by Kent County Council
1989 The Southbank Centre, London
British Open Printmaking Competition
Royal Festival Hall, London
Present Prints
1988 Goldsmiths Gallery, London
Works by Invitation
National Printmaking Touring Exhibition
Open to Print
Kent Arts Festival, Romney Marsh
Exhibited work with John and Paul Nash
1987 Metropole Arts Centre, Folkestone
Inscape
Private Collections: Portex Ltd (International Medical Equipment Manufacturers)
Hallett & Co. (Solicitors)
Awards: The John Southland Trust
Award for Study at the Slade School of Fine Art