MSWPS Featured Artist - Lisa O’Keefe

The featured artist section of the website regularly highlights a Full Member Artist. The artist will have won an award at the latest Changing Perspectives exhibition or the MSWPS Award, chosen by the artist’s peer members.

Currently featured is Lisa O’Keefe - Window Wish. Lisa was the recipient of a Highly Commended Award at the 2024 Annual Exhibition.

Artist Statement:

Window Wish is the 6th work in the ‘All That Remains’ series, one that was prompted by the radical changes in climate and the war in Ukraine.  

It is also a reflection on our desire since time immemorial to record, decorate, embellish, pass on information, whether on cave walls, stone or whatever the support.

I chose broken, dilapidated fence palings to record my images and feelings about what we could be left with if not very careful. I held onto photos of a backyard fence in total disrepair for years, wondering what I could do with them, and finally found a use.

These palings stand isolated on blackened earth against an empty background devoid of life.  They hold a collection of memories and references to lives that existed-and perhaps, still do, with any luck.

A warm palette, however, was chosen intentionally to represent hope, as were the white balloons rising up into the sky. Hope must live on.

Window Wish, Acrylic on Canvas