The Arts Center | Arts at the Center of Life

James O'Keefe is an artist in the tradition of artists from early 1900's such as Kurt Schwitters and Marcel Duchamp, working in assemblage , collage and in general using materials that were not purchased at the art supply store. O'Keefe recieved is BFA in Fine Arts from the Otis Arts Institute in Los Angelos, CA. He has been a very independent operating artist, not connected to trends and requirements of the art market. It has meant that he made the art he wanted, while supporting himself with other means. A lot of his work has only been exhibited once or twice. For some time he was connected with Gallery 114 in Portland.

O'Keefe has previously exhibited at The Arts Center in the Around Oregon Annual 2007 with The Museum of Emptyness.

Half of the year O'Keefe resides at the Oregon Coast, and moves in winter to warmer climes.

Artist Statement:
     Some 25 years ago, a passion about art was revived in me due to the strong outsider art movement in Portland. My wife and I would often attend the openings at Jamison Thomason Gallery and drive back home to the Oregon Coast filled with inspiration. I began to work in a studio in the basement of our house in 1986. The earliest piece in this show is dated from 1987, and is titled “The Muse”. It is a small box assemblage made of wood and utilizes a toy fireman holding a megaphone to his mouth. I still remember the unparalleled sense of freedom I had to include toy soldiers, Indians, dinosaur, planes and cars in these boxes.

     All during the 1990's I made box assemblages and it may be helpful here to digress for a moment and talk about assemblage and how it relates to my art. The   first assemblage work I became aware of was the work of Kurt Schwitters, the German artist who used pieces of found wood, springs and collage in his picture surface. This was probably the first time I realized that art objects existed in the found environment. Other found object art like that of the Dada movement proved to me beyond a doubt that there were no limits in art. Indeed the more subversive the better. Since those early experiences and as one who has been assembling art for a long time, the following observations I would like to share with you.

     Almost all the pictures and all the sculpture in this show are made in the assemblage tradition. In the assemblage tradition, the collecting of objects for use in art may be conscious or are a priori choices. You either have a specific usage in mind for the object or you can’t use it now but know you will use it in the future. The construction of the cloth paintings in this show were assembled out of strips of canvas some dipped in paint and then put up to dry on a clothesline. Some were then subjected to more color effects and saturated with wax. When the strips were done the process of making the painting was choosing strips and fastening them to a board. These strips were not found objects but they were nevertheless treated as such in making the picture.

      Another fascinating quality of the assemblage tradition is that it is trans-formative. One realizes first that objects have a variety of purposes and meanings, and secondly that objects can be transformed by placing them in different surroundings or by making them independent from their usual function, like Duchamp did with the urinal named “Mutt”.
      Before I started making “The Liberty Coffee Stand”, I had found several interesting furniture pieces that I bought cheep from the Goodwill bins and brought them home knowing I would use them but at that time I didn’t know how yet. By this time in my career I was fortunate in having a large studio to accommodate all this stuff to make art out of.

     The last comment I have about working in the assemblage tradition, is that your vision must take you there and you must see and appreciate the magic of objects. Objects have trans-formative qualities when the artist liberates their banal properties. Often this happens by accident, a chance combination, Other times it occurs by painting the object. Joseph Cornell did it in his boxes by making the infinite look small and finite extremely large.   However it happens it is pure magic when it does.

      Finally I must say a few things about the assemblage tradition in regards to narrative (a quality that conveys a meaning) and abstraction. While making the boxes, I was really more attracted to the plastic color of the toys rather than implying a story or narrative. The color of the toy would often govern the choice of the next color used nearby etc. However narrative could not be excluded even by the random association of objects and toys. A kind of abstract narrative was sometimes created and if you study “Magellan at the Equator” you will see what I mean. In this picture the action is non-linear, the meaning is non-linear, the narrative goes in and out of abstraction. There are many parallels here to a poetic process, but to me as a visual artist this is core magic of the assemblage tradition.

     I still work in the assemblage tradition however there are in this show a few paintings from 2008-9 that are just painting and do not use assemblage technique. These are the Panther Creek series of line paintings .These paintings are about the “freedom” of the line to be a line. I suppose also they could be described as a line looking for a “way”.

     So my friends it is up to you now to complete this show by viewing the work. When your vision meets mine perhaps another is formed a new way is created for all.

    James O’Keefe
    Oregon Coast
    2010