ARTIST BIO

Maddy Keener is an acrylic painter based in Richmond, VA. She graduated summa cum laude and received degrees in Arts Administration and English from Goshen College, where she participated in numerous campus exhibitions, served as editor-in-chief of the award-winning school literary arts journal Red Cents, and received awards and a scholarship for her artwork. Since graduating, she has exhibited in shows around Richmond, Northern Virginia, and D.C., including group shows at the Torpedo Factory Target Gallery in Fairfax, Virginia and the Hill Center Galleries in D.C., and a solo exhibition at Quirk Gallery in Richmond, VA.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My portraiture captures the nuances of human expression, strength, and the relationship between the subject and the viewer. The subjects in my paintings are friends, family, or myself, so it is vital to represent them honestly and uniquely to their personhood as I use their images to convey my own perspective. My experiences as a server over the pandemic has informed my recent body of work, and I depict scenes in local Richmond restaurants to explore the anxiety and isolation during periods of social distancing, combined with the desire for closeness, human connection, and the luxury of going out to eat. The sense of luxury is heightened by the selection of food on the table: desserts, small plates, and drinks adorn the scene, waiting for consumption.

As the immediate threat of COVID fades from society, regardless of the actual state of the pandemic, my work has kept its dining imagery, but its themes have shifted explore the tendency we have to curate objects to promote an ideal version of ourselves, how that burden disproportionately falls on women, and how letting the cracks show through the presentation hint at something darker and more authentic about our humanity. By continuing to use dining scenes, but shifting away from restaurants, I am critiquing the domestic role of women as hosts and homemakers, expected to effortlessly provide for others with little room for error. In my painting Pick the Gleaming Bones Clean, the scene reads as a dinner party but does not function like one: there are no plates or silverware, and most of the food is inedible or not suited as a full meal. Bones, bugs, cracked glass, and packaging are seamlessly integrated into an aesthetically beautiful painting, subverting the domestic expectations placed on women and revealing something truer about the host’s humanity.

Richmond, VA / United States