Lisa O'Keefe

Biography

I studied at the ECOLE NATIONALE SUPERIEURE  des BEAUX-ARTS,Paris, graduating in Painting with a B.A. Honours equivalent.  I spent many years there and continued to work as a full-time painter on returning to Australia.
The work, while figurative, is not traditional in style and and stems , in a large part, from the imagination.  Attention is paid to colour, composition and and the tactile qualities of paint.

I have exhibited consistently over the years in group and solo exhibitions, and am represented in private and corporate collections in France, the US, England and Australia.
Some of these exhibitions include: solo and group shows at Melaleuca Gallery, Anglesea, Tacit Galleries and 2 solo shows at the Essoign Club for Barristers. Other shows include group shows at the VAS, MSWPS, The Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron Easter Art Show-Best in Show, 2022, Best Acrylic,2023, and other art shows.

The current work began with reflections on Climate Change, the current state of world affairs and the bleak feeling that we could all end up with nothing much more than a collection of fence posts bearing witness to what once was. 
I find the notion of memory creeping in-what we want to keep, how we hold to these memories and  how we reinterpret them.   There is a desire to hold onto something and a need to remain optimistic.

The idea of the fence posts came from the dilapidated state of a boundary fence in a house I once lived in, and neither of the parties involved would budge an inch.

The Theatre of the Absurd series is an ongoing one in which I play around with the whimsical and the unusual, presenting figures that have odd shapes and are highly patterned. They are meant to be light-hearted and another way of looking at things.