2024
“Artist Terra Keck told me she sees a connection between aliens and angels — you’ve got my attention — and in her works she has combined layers of graphite and a wash of color before she erases the materials to create otherworldly images that glow with the optimism of theosophical insight. Heightened by the lights behind the panels and the accompanying metallic wall painting, these small works are brimming with the energy of a world waiting to be born, and I am so ready for them. —HV” Read the full Hyperallergic Article
The following are excerpts from an interview with Artefuse’s Jan Dickey at SPRING/BREAK New York 2024. Read the full article here.
"Arcturus"
8 x 10 inches. Eraser Drawing / Graphite, Colored Pencil, Watercolor, Acrylic Paint on BFK on Panel.
JD: Your work often evokes imagery of extraterrestrials, with glowing lights in forests or objects emerging from the sky. What is your interest in other realms?
TK: My background is in the occult, which has a rich history of trying to see beyond reality. Recently, that interest has metamorphosed into an interest in UFOs and consciousness studies. You and I… [have] our own bubble of reality. [They] rub up against and touch each other, and those intersections are really interesting to me. But [beyond that] there’s this “uber reality” that’s above us.
We only sense that uber reality indirectly, the same way we sense light––through the feeling of heat––getting sunburnt… It is physical and of the world, but it’s not quite [here]. We are always moving between these realms, but we don’t sense them in an ocular or physical way. Our perception of that other reality is often limited to subtle sensations, like getting the creeps, or walking into a room and knowing instinctively that two people were just fighting. There are things that we interact with that we haven’t evolved to sense just yet, because they don’t appear on the familiar light waves. Or, they don’t appear the way a tiger appears in the jungle.
“Cosmic Traveler”
9 x 12 inches. Eraser Drawing / Graphite, Watercolor, Colored Pencil, Acrylic Paint on BFK on Panel.
JD: So, to summarize: Through your drawings you are searching for something beyond what we can see. For you, creation is a way of reaching for the unknown.
TK: Definitely. I start with a piece of paper completely blackened with graphite, and then I add a watercolor wash to create the tone. Then slowly I work to bring out the light, and that’s the step in the process that feels like I’m tapping into something beyond myself. I try not to have a clear idea of what I’m going to create beforehand because then it becomes a product rather than an exploration. I feel like I’m communicating with some off-world entity; but not like I know their name, or where they’re from, or their planet. It’s more like I’m in tune with something else. They’re working through me and I’m a conduit. I don’t feel like I fully own the drawings once they’re done. That makes them more precious and holy and divine to me.
“Blossoming Starship”
30 x 40 inches. Eraser Drawing / Graphite, Watercolor, Colored Pencil, Acrylic Paint on BFK on Panel.
JD: It sounds like you’re relinquishing some authorship to whatever force you’re channeling. Does that allow you to distance yourself from the weight of responsibility for the work?
TK: When I let go of that control, the process feels more about openness and hope—counter to the hopelessness a lot of people are feeling right now.
JD: I get the sense that you’re tapping into something akin to medieval painters working for the church. They didn’t have to question the why—they knew they were creating for a divine purpose. Is that similar to what you’re experiencing? Are you trying to tap into that same feeling, but without the baggage of monotheism?
TK: Yeah, removing the why and just saying it’s a divine compulsion…
Interested in seeing more from this series? Please email me at TerraKeck@Gmail.com to access my exclusive 2024 Catalog.