The studio of Erin O'Keefe is filled with geometric wooden shapes and boards that she carves, paints, arranges, and finally photographs to produce abstract still lifes featuring stunning optical effects. By removing the glossy surface we ordinarily associate with the printed photographic medium, O'Keefe foregrounds the painterly texture of her brushstrokes, which comes into view when one examines the prints more closely. The complex process deftly leads the beholder astray; her works look like they were subjected to digital postprocessing and manipulated or even outright created on the computer. Continual experimentation and the search for juxtapositions of forms and colors by means of aesthetic techniques borrowed from modelmaking, architecture, painting, and installation art are distinguishing characteristics of her creative practice.
The monograph How are things? offers a comprehensive overview of O'Keefe's output. Essays by Emily LaBarge, Richard Paul, and Wayne Koestenbaum introduce the reader to her multilayered practice.