TOIL | Mark Keffer & Casey Vogt

MARK KEFFER

My paintings are an effort to reflect a state of uncertainty, one that is the natural product of the times in which we live, but also, one produced by the cognitive processes of perception and memory. These aspects of the mind are fragmentary and subjective and inspire the spatial ambiguity and other formal disruptions in my work. Attractive colors and patterns create semi-ironic moments of optimism in the midst of existential voids.

There are often references to circuitry, which are used primarily to symbolize information to which we have no access. I see ultimate truths as unknowable and hope to mirror our state of not knowing. At times, the work evokes remnants of a future digital past. I embrace open-endedness and a degree of absurdity in my work, as they echo the world around us.

No Us, the title of the current series, is a provocative and subjective effort to address the artist/viewer relationship, and, by extension, elusive uminations on the self. If meaning in art is projected, not inherent, then importance is placed on the experience and understanding (and emotions) of the viewer.

I hope there will be an awareness of this on the part of the viewer that might facilitate a look inward. Ultimately, I want to make work that questions the nature of reality, both internal and external. I want to make work that functions at, or beyond, the limits of my own understanding.

markkeffer.com

CASEY VOGT

This exhibit features 14 of my paintings made over the last 14 years, and while there is a wide visual range from series to series, there is an underlying theme that hasn’t left. I have an unabashed love of pattern, repetition, collage, and house paint.

For me, it’s about the economy of it all, make something beautiful out of something pedestrian. Scrapbooking paper, xeroxes, rubber stamps, and markers of all colors each make their way into my paintings. Transformation is paramount. I started painting images with cowboys in graduate school as a way of memorializing the toughest of us, the ones that didn’t need help and could exist on their own. I placed them in fantastical environments as a way of elucidating the disconnect between life and land.

In retrospect, I realized that I was painting images of my dad, who was NOT a cowboy, but was just as stoic, and hard-working. The series titled “Where have all the Cowboys gone?” were made with collaged images of real cowboys on panel. After he died in 2022, I made the decision to remove those cowboys as a way of visually depicting his absence.

For me, my hero, was gone…..

In my latest work I have taken to painting intricate shapes, interlinked, as a further way of connection to those I’ve lost. The time spent creating each new piece allows me to embrace the memories, joy, and love that I’ve experienced with them. Ultimately, I paint loss, but hopefully in a beautiful and interesting way.

caseyvogt.com