WHEN:
March 5th - April 6th, 202
For more information visit the Tappeto Volante website.
WHERE:
Tappeto Volante
126 13th St
Brooklyn, NY 11215
A spokesperson describes the event as follows:
“...Mixed Magic, the first solo exhibition in New York by Judi Keeshan,…
combines a decade of work produced in Keeshan’s Brooklyn studio, featuring a selection of acrylic and oil paintings oscillating between psychological introspection, expressive abstraction, and archetypal symbolism. Deeply informed by the expressive intensity of early modernist movements, the dream logic of Surrealism, and the formal experimentation of geometric abstraction, Keeshan’s work navigates the tension between immediacy and control, personal narrative and collective mythology, structure, and dissolution.
Keeshan’s compositions function as visual excavations of the subconscious, where imagery emerges and dissolves through an intuitive process of layering, erasure, and gestural mark-making. Recurring pictographic forms—horses, cats, celestial bodies, fragmented figures, and abstracted landscapes—populate her canvases, serving as signifiers of memory, transformation, and psychological depth. The artist’s approach to color, at times saturated and exuberant, at others restrained and spectral, reinforces an emotional immediacy that recalls the psychological charge of Die Brücke and the chromatic intensity of Fauvism.
Keeshan’s practice is deeply invested in material exploration and process-based discovery. Her approach to layering, at times additive and at others subtractive, creates a rich interplay between surface and depth, concealment and revelation. The artist’s engagement with painterly intuition—allowing form to emerge through action rather than predefined structure—reinforces the performative and time-based nature of her compositions.
Keeshan channels raw movement and psychological urgency through the depiction of motions outlined in electrified strokes of color. In Fiery and Untamed at Midnight, the rhythmic dynamism of the brushwork, combined with the heightened contrast of form against an atmospheric ground, speaks to the artist’s engagement with movement as an expressive force, aligning with the gestural energy of early Expressionism. In Reclining Mermaid presents a liminal figure suspended between the terrestrial and the celestial, her body fragmented into organic, flowing contours that merge with an ethereal backdrop. The work’s distortion of anatomy and fluidity of form recalls the Surrealist impulse to reconfigure the human body as a site of transformation, reflecting broader explorations of femininity, identity, and mythology.
The figures, composed of layered textures and overlapping gestures, recall the mythological tradition of composite creatures as embodiments of duality and the unknown. Chimera (2017) introduces a hybridized being, assembled from disparate anatomical and abstracted elements, reinforcing the painting as a site of psychic reconstruction. The concept of the chimera, which extends beyond mythology into science and genetics as a metaphor for multiplicity and hybridity, underscores Keeshan’s broader interest in the interwoven nature of perception, identity, and artistic process. In Untold Stories of Yesterday, the past is reframed through a vibrantly hued interior tableau, where familiar childhood objects—a rocking horse, an oversized vase, a glowing lamp—appear within a skewed, surreal space. By employing a flattened perspective and high-contrast chromatic relationships, the work recontextualizes ordinary objects into symbolic markers of nostalgia and the distortion of memory.
Keeshan’s paintings frequently incorporate spiritual and mystical symbolism, placing her within a tradition of artists who use visual language to channel otherworldly forces.Earth Angel (2023) introduces a central winged figure standing in a radiant environment populated by floral motifs, glowing orbs, and a secondary figure embedded within the composition, evoking Metaphysical Surrealism’s engagement with transcendence and existential duality. The interaction between figuration and abstraction, tangible form and ineffable presence, underscores Keeshan’s ability to create a visual language that is both intimate and universal..."
