Artist Spotlight
Keegan Luttrell
Keegan Luttrell is a multimedia artist whose work verges towards an eventual moment when everything might collapse, explode or become tenuous. Her photographs, drawings, site-specific installations, and videos, often exaggerate scale and time to immerse the viewer in environments that waver between the familiar and the otherworldly. We spoke to the artist about her videos, exclusive to Depict, and her art practice.
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Themes
My work explores understanding how time changes within heightened states of chaos. My videos and installations play with scale, time and how we interpret tenuous situations. They immerse the viewer into a world where time is stretched or exaggerated, to emphasize how these moments shift our senses and play with perception.
Recently, I have been looking to specific locations to provide me with a sense of what is left after the chaos, and I have focused on California City, a town that was planned but never fully developed in the midst of the vast Mojave Desert. Today California City is nothing but unbuilt roads and empty cul-de-sacs that were intended to become a place where life and suburbia flourished, but remains only a skeleton of a town that was never born. I am wondering if this is the “perfect society,” like the word Utopia suggests. Utopia literally translates to “no place” in ancient Greek.
The works I’ve created suggest the impossibility of escaping the laws of capitalism but also hint at the possibility in what remains. We are always trying to improve our world and move towards progress, but consequently things are left and forgotten in the midst of these advancements. It makes me question the stability and longevity of “progress” especially when it comes to technology. Contrary to the idea that Utopia is unattainable, I feel that we are still collectively obsessed with achieving perfection within society.
Image-making and time-based media
I am interested in a bit of the magic that occurs when I create a piece, and playing with scale and time allows me to do so. In Take Shelter, a post-apocalyptic environment was created by filming fire crackers blowing up in a small box. The actual scale of this project was rather small but transformed into a more immersive environment during the installation and that played with the idea of authenticity.
Aurora is meant to depict the chaos of our vast atmosphere, but it is comprised of small dust particles on a light. Again, micro becomes macro and vice versa, confusing the viewer within and alternative space and time I have created.
My video Coasters includes found footage. I wanted to accurately depict what it feels like when you ride a roller coaster. Just one viewpoint did not seem right when it comes trying to portraying the adrenaline rush that occurs when you are suspended in time that is meant to be simultaneously amusing and fearful.
Video can become so much of an experience if the audience is willing to spend the time. My videos are non-linear and are meant to engulf the viewer and lure them into a portal. My video practice is interesting because it falls in between each type of working style. I usually approach the work the same way as photography, painting and drawing — a sketch for a larger idea — however the video can then transform into an installation itself.
Divergent Properties and Aurora II, video projected on parachute.
Artistic approach and practice
My approach varies depending on what medium I am working within. With large installation projects I usually approach the work conceptually, relating to a larger idea, feeling or emotion I am trying to recreate as an experience. With other mediums the work tends to be a bit more intuitive. My photographic work, drawings and paintings are much more fluid and I am not necessarily thinking of a specific idea in the onset but instead arrive at one throughout the process. I usually begin with drawing, painting and photography for that reason — it is much more accessible and helps me flesh out larger ideas.
And Patti Smith’s “Advice for the Young.” She pretty much sums up my whole artistic philosophy and life philosophy in a six minute video. Watch it.
Keegan Luttrell is a multimedia artist living and working in Oakland, California. She completed her MFA at Mills College in Oakland, California in 2013. She graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2008 with a BFA in Art History, Theory and Criticism and a concentration in Photography.
View Keegan Luttrell’s video series on Depict here.
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