Anwen Keeling

Anwen Keeling is a contemporary Australian Figurative Painter

"Keeling’s realist paintings capture evocative moments in fictional lives with a reverence for poignancy, innocence and elegance. As an accomplished technician (with both camera and brush), Keeling’s genre of heightened realism reveals an adept skill in truthfully depicting the body in space through the use of linear perspective, velvety colour and tight compositions.

Keeling stages her narrative by first photographing and sketching her models in a domestic setting. Each painting’s scene in The Blue Room suite unfolds in the same blue room. The photography is integral to her working process as it captures fleeting moments of light and shadow. Keeling then skillfully employs rich pigments and layers of thin glazes to create her precise paintings. Gillian Serisier aptly states in her 2014 catalogue essay:

“Painting with oil on Belgian linen, Keeling is enamoured by the act of painting… she nurtures paint’s ability to describe light through the glowing layers of transparent colour that shimmer with in the rich lead white, umbers and ultramarine of her palette.” (Gillian Serisier, The Blue Room, 2014)

Despite her painting’s almost photo-realist quality, Keelin...

1998 Bachelor of Arts (Visual) (First Class Honours) and University Medal, Canberra School of Art, Australian National University
2001 Masters of Art (European Fine Art), Winchester School of Art, Southampton University, Barcelona, Spain

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014 The Blue Room, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney
2012 Anwen Keeling, Michael Reid Murrurundi, New South Wales 2011 Sporthorse, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney
2009 Shadow of a Doubt, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney
2007 Shadowlands, Art Galleries Schubert, Queensland
2007 The Falling Dark, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney 2005 Languor, Art Galleries Schubert, Queensland 2004 Waiting Room, Brian Moore Gallery, Sydney
2003 New Paintings, Brian Moore Gallery, Sydney
2001 Allegory, Panorama Gallery, Barcelona, Spain 1999 Swathed, Span Galleries, Melbourne
Paintings and Drawings, Goya Galleries, Melbourne
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013 LSG2013, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney
2011 The Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 2010 The Sulman Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
State of the Art, ABSOLUT Stairwell Gallery, Sydney 2009 Summer Exhibition, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney 2008 Melbourne Art Fair, (Liverpool Street Gallery), Melbourne 2007 ABN AMRO Emerging Artist Award, Sydney
Come Hither: Interpretations of the Boudoir, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
Summer Exhibition, Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney 2006 Metro 5 Art Award, Metro 5 Gallery, Melbourne
Melbourne Art Fair, (Liverpo...