Rita Keegan

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Rita Keegan
Born
Rita Morrison

1949 (age 74–75)
New York, New York, U.S.
Education High School of Art and Design, San Francisco Art Institute
Known for Painting, digital art

Rita Keegan (born 1949) is an American-born artist, lecturer and archivist, based in England since the late 1970s. She is a multi-media artist whose work uses video and digital technologies. [1] Keegan is best known for her involvement with in the UK's Black Arts Movement in the 1980s and her work documenting artists of colour in Britain.

Contents

Biography

Born Rita Morrison [2] in the Bronx, New York City, [3] to a Dominican mother and Canadian father, [4] she described her upbringing in the Bronx as having "more in common with an English/Commonwealth background". [5] She graduated from the High School of Art and Design focusing on illustration and costume design, then obtained a fine arts degree at the San Francisco Art Institute, [6] where her teachers included the photographer Imogen Cunningham and the African-American artist Mary O'Neill. [5] Keegan moved to London, England, in the late 1970s. [1]

Keegan originally trained as a painter but in the 1980s begin to incorporate lens-based media, using the photocopier and computer in both 2D and installation work. [7] In 1984 she worked at "Community Copyart" in London. The GLC-funded organisation was an affordable resource centre for voluntary groups to create they own print material in addition to working with artists who wanted to use the photocopier as a form of printmaking. [8]

Keegan was a founding member of the artists' collectives Brixton Art Gallery in 1982, and later Women's Work and Black Women in View. She went on to co-curate Mirror Reflecting Darkly, Brixton Art Gallery's first exhibition by the Black Women Artists collective. [9] From 1985 Keegan was a staff member at the Women Artists Slide Library (WASL), where she established and managed the Women Artists of Colour Index. [10] She was Director of the African and Asian Visual Arts Archive from 1992 to 1994. [2] In 2021 she had a solo exhibition Somewhere Between There and Here at the South London Gallery [11]

Keegan taught New Media and Digital Diversity at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she also helped establish the digital-media undergraduate course in the Historical and Cultural Studies department. [2] [9]

Selected exhibitions

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References

  1. 1 2 Cutting Edge, The Women's Research Group, ed. (1999). Desire By Design: Body, Territories and New Technologies. I.B.Tauris. p. 237. ISBN   9781860642807.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Cheddie, Janice (2002). "Keegan, Rita". In Donnell, Alison (ed.). Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. Routledge. p. 167. ISBN   9781134700257.
  3. ↑ "Rita Keegan" (YouTube video, posted 9 August 2013), SamtheWheels, 2008.
  4. ↑ Chambers, Eddie (1991). Four x 4: installations by sixteen artists in four galleries. Bristol: E. Chambers.
  5. 1 2 Rendell, Clare (October–November 1987). "Actual lives of women artists--Rita Keegan 1987: painter Rita Keegan talks to Clare Rendell". Women Artists Slide Library Journal (19): 10–11. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
  6. ↑ Buckman, David, ed. (2006). Dictionary of Artists in Britain Since 1945. Art Dictionaries. ISBN   9780953260959.
  7. ↑ Taylor, Stuart (10 January 1997). "Rita Keegan on Digital Diversity and the Colour of Computers". Mute. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  8. ↑ Baines, Jess (2015). "Nurturing Dissent? Community Printshops in 1970s London". In Uldam, Julie; Vestergaard, Anne (eds.). Civic Engagement and Social Media: Political Participation Beyond Protest. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 190. ISBN   9781137434166.
  9. 1 2 "TrAIN Conversation - Françoise Dupré and Rita Keegan in conversation with Deborah Cherry - BRIXTON CALLING!". University of the Arts London, Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  10. ↑ Arya, Rina (2012). Chila Kumari Burman: Shakti, Sexuality and Bindi Girls. KT Press. ISBN   978-0953654130.
  11. 1 2 Morris, Kadish (11 September 2021). "Rita Keegan: the return of black British art's forgotten pioneer". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  12. 1 2 3 "Keegan, Rita - Bibliography and Exhibitions". African American Visual Artists Database.
  13. ↑ "Mirror Reflecting Darkly – Black Womens Art – Womens Work 4". Brixton Art Gallery Archive. 15 June 1985. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  14. ↑ Chambers, Eddie (1991). Four X 4 | Catalogue. ISBN   0951329014. Diaspora Artists.
  15. ↑ "Time Machine: Ancient Egypt and Contemporary Art". InIVA. Retrieved 12 February 2024.
  16. ↑ Cotter, Holland (24 October 1997). "ART REVIEW; This Realm of Newcomers, This England". The New York Times .
  17. ↑ "Exhibitions and Special Exhibits since 1948". Horniman Museum and Gardens. Retrieved 21 September 2015.

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