His compositions come to him in complete form, which he quickly captures by sketching, completing many drawings until the form feels right. Then he turns to colors, instinctively feeling out combinations and palettes, often combining natural hues with the synthetic. These color combinations have an almost synesthetic effect for Keegan, who says that certain pairings have tastes: magenta and yellow, for instance, taste like marzipan. Once his initial colors are chosen, he carefully maps out his shapes freehand with measuring tools and then begins to paint with oils, a medium he considers outside of history. His process is meticulous and laborious, hours spent on each shape until it is finished from every angle.

Alessandro Keegan (b. 1980) is a visual artist, writer, and professor living and working in Walden, NY. He holds an MFA in painting and drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MA in art history from Brooklyn College.

Keegan has been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, London, Dublin, Barcelona, and The Hague. Writings about his work have appeared in Artforum, Elephant Magazine, Masthead Magazine and Ephemera NYC as well as journals such as Helvete (Punctum Books, Brooklyn) and J’ai Froid (Castillo/Corrales, Paris). Keegan’s art practice featured in a 2020 documentary called “The Matter of Mind” by Full Moon Films.