moom bookshop

Following on from an exhibition of the same title at Sargent’s Daughters gallery in New York and coinciding with a new exhibition at Seventeen gallery, London, Erin O’Keefe’s new publication I saw the man with a telescope. is a vibrant, almost psychedelic collection of Erin O’Keefes latest works, a much anticipated follow up to Built Work which was published in 2020 by Jane & Jeremy.

Erin O’Keefe makes still life photographs that explore the unreliability of spatial perception, highlighting the dynamic nature of visual interpretation. Continuing her process of cutting and painting blocks of wood, O’Keefe explores various arrangements in front of coloured backdrops, resulting in images which are often mistook for abstract paintings. Closer inspection reveals O’Keefes playful use of light and space and the nature of the process – overlapping of the blocks and shadows as well as the rich texture of the roughly painted surfaces.

The title of the book, I saw the man with a telescope. alludes to the ambiguity of the images and the impossibility of a single interpretation. The plane of the camera lens flattens and distorts the three dimensional scene it captures, and the viewer is left with confounding images that withhold any certainty, existing in a space of possibility and speculation.