Normal, IL
Venise Keys
Is there room for the body in abstract painting? Sure, if it bumps and grinds, pulses and pumps enough. The famed British artist Cecily Brown has made that riotously and rigorously clear by now. Venise Keys seems to want to prove some of the same, mixing together vast palettes of color, throbbing geometries and dark body parts in her oil canvases. The challenge of locating those bodies amid teal swaths and taupe ovals energizes—but doesn’t fully empower. Space is confused, hues muddy, brushwork sketchy. Paint on canvas, shapes and color, can make every kind of meaning—but only if applied with enough consideration and originality.
—Lori Waxman 3/25/16 4:29 PM