Tara Keefe
Tara Keefe was born and raised in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where she was influenced by the work of Andrew Wyeth, N.C. Wyeth and Howard Pyle. After a decade of composing and performing music, Tara discovered a deep interest in painting that quickly developed into a passion. She went on to be mentored by artist Anna B. McCoy, a Wyeth family member, as well as studying with artists T.R. Colletta, Michael Markowitz and Al Gury of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Working primarily in oil, Tara's paintings include landscapes, figures, still lifes and portraits. Her landscapes are painted en plein air -- in the Bay Area, Pennsylvania and Maine -- with an emphasis on atmosphere and brushwork. In painting the figure and still life, she strives to build form and create mood. She uses her understanding of and respect for traditional oil painting techniques as a starting point to express deeply emotional, painterly realism. "The key to my art is emotion. I want whoever looks at my art to feel something. That's what makes a painting or drawing powerful to me -- when I look at it and react; when I can feel it on an emotional and sensual level."
Her watercolor/ink paintings are moody and full of motion. "There is an amazing power in a raw mark or a sensitive line. I let myself be drawn into the motion of the figure or the movement of my eye. On the paper, there begins a movement from abstraction to the realization of form and feeling. It's like a dance -- this interaction of seeing, responding to the figure, allowing the line to unfold, then applying the watercolor as spontaneously as possible."
Tara Keefe currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.