Staging the Wild
Jazz Keillor

Mar 21 - Apr 1, 2023

Gallery 1

MFA Thesis exhibition

Staging the Wild presents a series of humorous and quietly harrowing acrylic paintings that fictionalize, exaggerate, and parody the visual, spatial, and structural systems employed within contemporary sites of outdoor recreation. Keillor’s playfully cropped and colorfully rendered compositions bring into question what must be revealed or concealed in order to preserve a fully serviced vision of the wilderness for the contemporary outdoor enthusiast. Viewers are invited to reflect on the tensions that exist between how outdoor experiences bring a sense of joy, and the capitalist/colonial constructs that shape our collective understanding of the wild.