Maureen O’Keefe

About the Artist

Maureen O’Keefe is a portrait and figure painter living and

working in mid-western Ohio.  The process for Maureen's current body of work involves a return to the blind-contour drawing that is taught in beginning art classes. The artist never lifts the pencil from the surface and never looks at the drawing; only at the subject. Once a line drawing is finished, she has a template for a finished work.  Her work investigates identities and belonging, often in a religious or spiritual context.

Maureen received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2005.  Maureen is a recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award for FY2019 and has exhibited widely. In January of 2023 Maureen was an artist in residence at the Chateau Orquevaux in Orquevaux, France.  She has been teaching drawing and painting courses at Edison State Community College since 2009.



Artist’s Statement

I am always looking for beauty in imperfection, and to find the sacred in secular life.

My newest work explores concepts of goodness, value, and worth. It asks, what does it mean to be a good person? Do people have intrinsic value? They are questions I have asked myself repeatedly. The area in which we live, the traditions with which we are raised, the expectations of society all put pressures on us to behave and present ourselves in specific ways.  But what happens if these expectations don’t fit us? Are we still good people?