Theaterplatz, staircase
Caitlin Keogh’s graphic imagery incorporates myriad source material, from the Arts & Crafts movement to medical journals. She is interested in how physically breaking up these images further complicates them, both visually and conceptually. Her installation on the stairs in front of Theater Basel – next to the famous Tinguely Fountain – literally pulls apart the image. Not only is it an exploration of pictorial stability, but it is also an experiential way of displaying a two-dimensional picture. Because visitors will appear to be wandering through a painting or levitating within it, Keogh engages with the disjuncture between the architectural, utilitarian agenda of the stairs and the aesthetic language of a superficially applied picture. Keogh’s vivid, seductive paintings reimagine fragments of female bodies, natural motifs, patterns, and ornamentations, exploring questions of gender and representation, articulations of personal style, and the construction of artistic identity.
