Statement

“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by answers.” – James Baldwin

My current body of work consists primarily of drawings, objects and documentation of process. Physically, my work discusses barriers and distance; intimately, my work is concerned with identity and accumulation. I use these philosophies as metaphor to describe relationships within the social sphere.

Within our technology-based social structure, we are creating and buying into ideas that supposedly create a simpler living environment, when in fact, the truth is exactly the opposite: things are rarely what they seem to be. My work follows this example in that it has a face-value of complexity, but once the viewer examines it, its true nature is extremely simple.

My work is rooted in feminist philosophy, deconstruction, Buddhism, barrier, ritual and accumulation. Though I may not explore every one of these ideas in each piece, each idea arrives in configurations throughout the whole.

Biography

“Using the human form as an often taut, tormented, hieroglyphic alphabet, Marion explores issues of identity, authority, sexuality and cognition.” ¹

Keri Marion was born in Carmel, California (1972) and spent her formative years in Seattle, Washington, eventually moving to Providence, Rhode Island in 2007.

She studied art at Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, Washington, earning first a BFA in painting/new media (2002) and second a BA in Art History Research with emphasis on Cultural Anthropology (2003).

Visually, her current work is most closely associated with a new Minimalism using simple media or Lo-Fi technology to make commentary on the every-day experience.  She is highly influenced by the genres of Dada, Fluxus and Pop Art, and specifically artists like Tara Donovan, Agnes Martin, and Giorgio Morandi who tend to use repetition and/or common materials as methods of exploration.

During her undergraduate studies, Marion focused on the dichotomy of being female, merging disjoined body parts into paintings, drawings and sculptures. Her post-graduate study has focused on removing layers of narrative to explore memory, cognition and commonly experienced existential angst through lo-fi methods like pinhole photography and mixed media collage. Most recently, her work is finding a balance between authenticity and sophistication using simple materials and repetitive action to leave a residue of work that is almost entirely engaged in process.

Keri Marion lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.

¹Boggs, Sherri. The Pacific Northwest Inlander , August 7, 2003, p 65