Installation views of Marilyn Keating's Natural Curiosities at Grounds for Sculpture, May 12 - September 23, 2012.
Marilyn Keating assembling Polyphemus with Flying Fish in foreground.
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Curator Virginia Oberlin Steel wrote:
On the DAB’s Mezzanine is Marilyn Keating’s Natural Curiosities, a selection of sculptures and prints spanning almost thirty years and revealing her ongoing fascination with nature as encountered in daily life. Over the past twelve years, she has transformed her backyard to attract birds, bugs and butterflies, all of whom have become the inspiration for and the subject of her art. Imbued with the veracity of folk art, Marilyn Keating's artworks have an irresistible quality that resonates with viewers of all ages.
A brilliant worker of wood—the medium she favors—Keating saws, carves or assembles her sculptures from pieces of wood of various origins and then attaches bits of string, paper, metal shapes, old children's toys and other materials to it. Her strong affinity with woodworking has translated into an extensive series of hand-colored woodblock prints on Asian papers. Keating's prints as well as her sculptures have a tactile quality that invite close inspection, which is always rewarded by the discovery of details that might be sobering, surprising or humorous.
