The series of ENDLESS little portraits by Bridget Keating represent images of people who are familiar, or foreigners or who we think we recognize. These images accumulate in a multitude of beings of all kinds. The importance of the portrait is started by an arbitrary selection of subjects. Most portraits have as their source musicians, actors and other celebrities whose audience likes to list their names, expressing virtual intimacy with the star in question. In the end, the viewer remains ambivalent characters before a mass in which the likeness s ert much to alleviate that stress the differences.
Cook jackets and haircuts serve as clues as to the identity of the subjects, while the titles serve to confirm or confuse it. The reasons why Keating paints these personalities are intriguing, each of his portraits losing his face, drowned in the crowd of others. The portrayed personality becomes secondary. By means of the pose, the light, the gesture and the technique, Keating uses his subjects as a starting point towards an exploration of figurative painting during which the place occupied by the personal and psychological dimension of the characters appearing on his paintings.
Keating’s project finds its strength in numbers, while the subjects lose their individuality. By means of compact and wonderfully executed portraits, Keating addresses various issues such as idolatry, individualism and recognition. Bridget Keating holds a Master of Fine Arts from Concordia University, obtained in 2008, and has exhibited in Montreal and Halifax in group and individual exhibitions.