Keith Blake (b. 1992) is an artist from Co. Tipperary, Ireland. He is a graduate of the Limerick School of Art and Design with a BA in Fine Art (Painting). He lives and works in Co. Limerick, Ireland.
Instagram: blakerainkeith
Below are two statements from previous exhibitions which highlight some of the concerns Blake addresses in his practice:
1. Olivia Furey + Keith Blake at CB1 Gallery Limerick
Blake is interested in what Carol J. Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, has coined the absent referent.” This is the “literal being who disappears in the eating of dead bodies.” Adams uses this term to describe how most people overlook the fact that the eating of meat is an interaction with what was once a living animal. Modern methods of food processing such as factory farming uses language to deny animals of their sentient nature so as to protect the conscience of the eater of meat. The “absent reference” enables the shrouding of the violence inherent in the eating of meat by concealing the death of the animal. Adams elaborates:
"The notion of the animal's body as edible occurs in a similar way and removes the agency of humans who buy dead animals to consume them: 'Someone kills animals so that I can eat their corpses as meat,' becomes 'animals are killed to be eaten as meat,' then 'animals are meat,' and finally 'meat animals,' thus 'meat.'"
Adams feels that we are conditioned to view certain animals as "carriers of meat" and that their telos is to be utilised and consumed by humans. We refer to them as "it" as we would any expendable object. Blake hopes to make the viewer reflect upon how this influences our response to the act of butchering he has captured in an abattoir located in Killenaule, Co. Tipperary. Blake hopes to highlight the liminality of animal slaughter; how we can become perplexed and unnerved when we witness the intermediate moment between "animal" and "meat."
A small notebook that Blake's grandmother used during the final months of her life is displayed alongside these photographs. She was forced to use this notebook as her only means of communication as motor neuron disease had destroyed the muscles in her throat and robbed her of any ability to speak. This seemingly trivial notebook is a reminder of how agency is something that can and will be stolen; whether it is through the use of language or because of the mortality of our flesh.
2. Female/Mystic at the Source Arts Centre Thurles
Blake’s work in Female/Mystic is a reflection on the word "rumination". In an article titled Rethinking Rumination by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema et al that was featured in Perspectives on Psychological Science it is defined as "a mode of responding to distress that involves repetitively and passively focusing on symptoms of distress and on the possible causes and consequences of these symptoms." Unfortunately, this leads to inertia as opposed to problem-solving. Blake is fascinated by the etymology of this word. It originates in the Latin "ruminatus", past particle of the word "ruminare". This means to "chew the cud" and refers to the act whereby a cow regurgitates the food it has swallowed as a means to masticate it once more. The rumen of a cow finds it incredibly difficult to breakdown fodder and sends it back through the oesophagus in order for it to be re-chewed in the mouth. This bolus can then be digested with ease.
What interests Blake is how the history of the word suggests a correlation between this method of digestion and a cognitive process and how the former is used to elucidate the latter. Blake’s work is concerned with how the corporeal can be adapted and used metaphorically as a means to describe something that is non-concrete. The tripartite process of consuming, regurgitation and re-consuming becomes a metaphor for the cyclical nature of the mental activity of rumination. This reminded the artist of a visceral scene from the metaphysical horror classic City of the Living Dead (1980) which was directed by Lucio Fulci. The infamous scene involves the phantom of Father Thomas, a priest who had committed suicide in the graveyard of the local village of Dunwich, appearing to a couple fondling in a vehicle on a foggy night. The girl proceeds to shed tears of blood and to purge her intestines through her mouth. Blake was impressed by Fulci’s appropriation of the motifs of H.P Lovecraft’s oeuvre for this film. He decided to create three paintings in response so as to identify what exactly held his fascination beyond the luridness of it all. Blake concluded that the scene invoked questions about bodily autonomy that remain at the core of his practice even as he explores a multitude of subjects.
Hilary Mantel, author of the acclaimed Wolf Hall, alluded to the significance that autonomy had to female saints such as St. Catherine of Siena in an article about anorexia mirabilus for the Guardian titled Holy Disorders. Anorexia mirabilis translates from Latin as "miraculous lack of appetite" and was practiced by ascetic women during the Middle Ages such as St. Margaret of Cortona who wanted to die of starvation to ‘satiate the poor.’ These women would refuse all food except for the Eucharist so as to coalesce with God. The significance of food increased tenfold after the Great Famine of 1315-1317 that devastated Europe so you imagine the import that this action had. Mantel pinpoints why Blake has become so engaged with these austere women:
"Survivors are reluctant to admit that anorexia, which in the end leads to invalidity and death, is along the way a path of pleasure and power: it is the power that confers pleasure, however freakish and fragile the gratification may seem. When you are isolated, your back to the social wall, control over your own ingestion and excretion is all you have left; this is why professional torturers make sure to remove it."
Mantel is correct when she goes on to say that anorexia mirabilis was a form of self-assertion for women in a patriarchal society that demeaned and discouraged them. Dr. Caroline Walker tells us:
"Women’s food practices frequently enabled them to determine the shape of their lives—to reject unwanted marriages, to substitute religious activities for menial duties within the family, to redirect the use of fathers’ or husbands’ resources, to change or convert family members, to criticize powerful secular or religious authorities, and to claim for themselves teaching, counselling, and reforming roles for which the religious tradition provided, at best, ambivalent support."
Instagram: blakerainkeith
Below are two statements from previous exhibitions which highlight some of the concerns Blake addresses in his practice:
1. Olivia Furey + Keith Blake at CB1 Gallery Limerick
Blake is interested in what Carol J. Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, has coined the absent referent.” This is the “literal being who disappears in the eating of dead bodies.” Adams uses this term to describe how most people overlook the fact that the eating of meat is an interaction with what was once a living animal. Modern methods of food processing such as factory farming uses language to deny animals of their sentient nature so as to protect the conscience of the eater of meat. The “absent reference” enables the shrouding of the violence inherent in the eating of meat by concealing the death of the animal. Adams elaborates:
"The notion of the animal's body as edible occurs in a similar way and removes the agency of humans who buy dead animals to consume them: 'Someone kills animals so that I can eat their corpses as meat,' becomes 'animals are killed to be eaten as meat,' then 'animals are meat,' and finally 'meat animals,' thus 'meat.'"
Adams feels that we are conditioned to view certain animals as "carriers of meat" and that their telos is to be utilised and consumed by humans. We refer to them as "it" as we would any expendable object. Blake hopes to make the viewer reflect upon how this influences our response to the act of butchering he has captured in an abattoir located in Killenaule, Co. Tipperary. Blake hopes to highlight the liminality of animal slaughter; how we can become perplexed and unnerved when we witness the intermediate moment between "animal" and "meat."
A small notebook that Blake's grandmother used during the final months of her life is displayed alongside these photographs. She was forced to use this notebook as her only means of communication as motor neuron disease had destroyed the muscles in her throat and robbed her of any ability to speak. This seemingly trivial notebook is a reminder of how agency is something that can and will be stolen; whether it is through the use of language or because of the mortality of our flesh.
2. Female/Mystic at the Source Arts Centre Thurles
Blake’s work in Female/Mystic is a reflection on the word "rumination". In an article titled Rethinking Rumination by Susan Nolen-Hoeksema et al that was featured in Perspectives on Psychological Science it is defined as "a mode of responding to distress that involves repetitively and passively focusing on symptoms of distress and on the possible causes and consequences of these symptoms." Unfortunately, this leads to inertia as opposed to problem-solving. Blake is fascinated by the etymology of this word. It originates in the Latin "ruminatus", past particle of the word "ruminare". This means to "chew the cud" and refers to the act whereby a cow regurgitates the food it has swallowed as a means to masticate it once more. The rumen of a cow finds it incredibly difficult to breakdown fodder and sends it back through the oesophagus in order for it to be re-chewed in the mouth. This bolus can then be digested with ease.
What interests Blake is how the history of the word suggests a correlation between this method of digestion and a cognitive process and how the former is used to elucidate the latter. Blake’s work is concerned with how the corporeal can be adapted and used metaphorically as a means to describe something that is non-concrete. The tripartite process of consuming, regurgitation and re-consuming becomes a metaphor for the cyclical nature of the mental activity of rumination. This reminded the artist of a visceral scene from the metaphysical horror classic City of the Living Dead (1980) which was directed by Lucio Fulci. The infamous scene involves the phantom of Father Thomas, a priest who had committed suicide in the graveyard of the local village of Dunwich, appearing to a couple fondling in a vehicle on a foggy night. The girl proceeds to shed tears of blood and to purge her intestines through her mouth. Blake was impressed by Fulci’s appropriation of the motifs of H.P Lovecraft’s oeuvre for this film. He decided to create three paintings in response so as to identify what exactly held his fascination beyond the luridness of it all. Blake concluded that the scene invoked questions about bodily autonomy that remain at the core of his practice even as he explores a multitude of subjects.
Hilary Mantel, author of the acclaimed Wolf Hall, alluded to the significance that autonomy had to female saints such as St. Catherine of Siena in an article about anorexia mirabilus for the Guardian titled Holy Disorders. Anorexia mirabilis translates from Latin as "miraculous lack of appetite" and was practiced by ascetic women during the Middle Ages such as St. Margaret of Cortona who wanted to die of starvation to ‘satiate the poor.’ These women would refuse all food except for the Eucharist so as to coalesce with God. The significance of food increased tenfold after the Great Famine of 1315-1317 that devastated Europe so you imagine the import that this action had. Mantel pinpoints why Blake has become so engaged with these austere women:
"Survivors are reluctant to admit that anorexia, which in the end leads to invalidity and death, is along the way a path of pleasure and power: it is the power that confers pleasure, however freakish and fragile the gratification may seem. When you are isolated, your back to the social wall, control over your own ingestion and excretion is all you have left; this is why professional torturers make sure to remove it."
Mantel is correct when she goes on to say that anorexia mirabilis was a form of self-assertion for women in a patriarchal society that demeaned and discouraged them. Dr. Caroline Walker tells us:
"Women’s food practices frequently enabled them to determine the shape of their lives—to reject unwanted marriages, to substitute religious activities for menial duties within the family, to redirect the use of fathers’ or husbands’ resources, to change or convert family members, to criticize powerful secular or religious authorities, and to claim for themselves teaching, counselling, and reforming roles for which the religious tradition provided, at best, ambivalent support."