Jennifer Keltos

Drive-ins, vanities, bathrobes and checkered floors… In her most recent body of work 'Spells', Jennifer Keltos often paints herself doubled, lost in reverie, amongst the suburban settings that are embedded in the American memory. Employing her realist training, she paints interiors from film and television she absorbed growing up in the 1990’s, as if they were remembered friends. She explores her personal encyclopedia of symbolism, featuring figures such as Bette Davis, the Golden Girls, and Maury Povich. The quiet backdrop of nature beckons her out of an inner cosmos in utterly personal displays of longing.

Could you tell us a little more about your background, and how did you begin creating art?

I grew up in upstate New York. I was an only child so I was left alone quite often to entertain myself. Even then, drawing was something that stilled my mind and allowed me to explore a fantasy world. My mom signed me up for classes of all sorts and art was the one thing I never quit. I became involved in intensive art programs as a teenager and briefly attended art school in Baltimore before settling on an academic-realist academy in Florence, Italy. The training there was intense and militaristic, working only from the cast and model. It gave me a visual facility to express myself with some ease, which is what I wanted, though it took years afterward to connect that training with what I want to express artistically. I just had my first solo show and finally sense these various facets of myself coming together within my art, which is exciting. 

What does your art aim to say to the viewers? 

I’m driven more aesthetically than conceptually. I love maximalist, absurd interiors and lush gardens, with people absent or subsumed by them. Last spring I visited the Art Institute of Chicago and they had the most incredible collection of Vuillard paintings. Upon seeing these intimate, patterned interior paintings and the figures occupying them, something clicked. I realized my love for painting this domestic, ‘feminine’ realm, though always with something a bit menacing seeping through. I tend to paint women. My grandmother is a big influence. She was agoraphobic, chronically ill, and full of magic. I think of her life as a 1950’s housewife and her domain of the home - one filled with cigarettes, tv psychics and Catholic Saints. She conjures for me the imagination of certain women, their power and powerlessness, the beauty and strangeness they create within circumstances they can’t necessarily control. 

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?

I’m constantly taking pictures and collecting images. I have a huge bank of images that I draw inspiration from. I’m often collaging many things together digitally - photographs I’ve taken and references I’m pulling from. When it comes to the act of painting, I want to feel transported to a childlike and nostalgic place. I recently rediscovered the supernatural soap opera ‘Passions’ that I loved in my preteen years in the early 2000’s. It hits every note - it’s camp, there are witches, and caricatured, impossible concepts of love play out in a small New England town. I let it play in the background as I paint and find it strangely comforting and conducive to long hours spent working. I’m also part of an artist cooperative and I've come to learn the importance of regularly spending time with other artists, to share our struggles and joys, since painting is such a solitary endeavor.

What’s the essential element in your art?

Lead. No, but in all seriousness, I’m interested in my work transmitting a certain feeling or mood rather than any overt message. The mundane infused with the magical and vice versa. I am almost anti-idealization. I think there’s a beauty and honesty in something that is a bit fucked up and broken. 

In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?

In some ways, I think an artist is the last person who should answer this question. I constantly question if there is meaning in anything I’m doing or making, and at the same time, I’m grateful and indebted to all of the creators that have inspired me. It’s difficult to define the boundary of where this question begins and ends. Art is infused into every aspect of our lives. Living amongst beauty has a massive effect on the individual and collective psyche. So much is created to be cheap and temporary, valuing the bottom line while killing the planet and ourselves. How a society values and funds the arts seems related to how it protects the natural world while caring for the people within it. It’s a marker of an investment in the world we’ll all come to inherit. 

Website: www.jenniferkeltos.com