Conflict, on both a personal as well as on a grand scale, is very much at the heart of Megan Keating’s work. The conflict Keating creates within her paintings, paper cuts and installation however is beautiful and meticulously constructed. Keating sees this conflict rising out of polarities that are grounded firmly within the everyday and include such concerns as tradition & modernity, beauty & terror, craft & technology, media & reality, love & hate, home & away, nature & culture and language & communication. One pole or concern, however, is never demonstrated exclusively within her work, it is always seen with the other resolutely within sight and at times they compete in a constant mêlée that is both playful and critical. The whole combination can appear comical, although Keating’s work is not humorous; the fun that she has is often a little too sharp to laugh at.

In past work Keating has often utilised the machinery and the personnel of war in imagery intended to jolt us out of our lackadaisical, even sloth-like, approach to the world around us.  More recently, language and how we communicate through media is at the fore-front of her thinking.

Her work utilises traditional paper cutting and craft techniques that have been researched through a series of international residencies in Beijing in 2000 and Tokyo in 2003. In 2006 and 2007 she undertook two separate residencies in Taiwan, and then in Malaysia in 2008-09. She also has a PhD in painting from the University of Tasmania, where she has been lecturing since 1998.

Megan Keating has established a growing national and international reputation; her recent exhibitions include the solo shows Plantation Nation at Rimbun Dahan in Selangor, Malaysia, Hard Love, Devonport Regional Gallery, The Year of the Rat, Xue Xue Institute, Taipei, Taiwan, Deep Water Dark Water, Criterion Gallery, and the group exhibitions: Under My Skin, Asia Link Touring exhibition to Anteneo Art Gallery, Manilla, Nanjang Academy of Fine Art Gallery, Singapore, Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, Hanoi, Papercuts, 24hr Art, Darwin, Tokyo: Floating Worlds at Plimsoll Gallery in Hobart, This Crazy Love at Linden Gallery in Melbourne and Loop at Barry Room Gallery in Taiwan.

Enter the flash site for more images of her paintings and paper work.

Megan Keating’s CV