Margaret Keelan

"For the past few years my sculptures have been glazed, stained, fired, then glazed, stained and fired again to give the surfaces the look of disintegrating paint over weathered wood. The softening and reduction of form so that its essential nature is revealed is a metaphor I am using for life being lived."

Margaret Keelan uses the female form as her main source of inspiration and clay as her primary media. She is drawn to clay because of its endless possibilities for construction and surface finishes, and fascinated with the female form as it allows her to be personal but not self-indulgent, self-referential yet universal. Inspired by Dolly Parton's words "It took a lot of money to make me look this cheap," Keelan puts a lot of effort into making the surfaces of her work look old, decayed and weathered. Her figures reference Colonial Mexican and Central American "santos" figures and 19th century dolls. They speak of innocence, decay, mortality and immortality.

Keelan has been the recipient of two Canada Council Awards and was invited to lecture on her latest work at the 2005 National Council on Education in the Ceramic Art in Baltimore. Her sculpture can be seen in 500 Figures in Clay: Ceramic Artists Celebrate the Human Form, published by Lark Books, as well as The Craft and Art of Clay by Susan Peterson. Recent exhibitions of her work have been in Seattle, SOFA Chicago, and Santa Fe.