A longtime demystifier of artistic process, Keane believes great painting means courting the unknown. Now, she's bringing you along for the ride.

A few years ago I spearheaded a transformative project in the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia in collaboration with anthropologist Sebastian Ramirez of Princeton University.

I painted individuals living in a refugee shelter, displaced by violence from Colombia's ongoing guerrilla drug war: twelve paintings, one intense week. Subsequently on view at L.I.A. LAB, a Bogotá art space, the sitters rode chartered buses into town to attend the opening reception and witness themselves, in paint, in a gallery space the size of a small airplane hangar. 

The result? Everyone involved in the project and I saw first-hand the potential for painting to impact lives. 

From this, my mission of changing lives through art coalesced and within six months return from Colombia, PAS DE DEUX PROJECT was born. 

Named after the famed classical ballet duet, Pas de Deux Project is an extension of my current studio practice of painting people -- duets, solos, trios -- and sometimes just the spaces people inhabit or objects that are loved.

Pas de Deux Project is uniquely couples and other duets in paint.

Biography

Pas de Deux is an initiative of artist Meghan Keane, founder and director of meghan.keane.studio (m.k.s). In existence since 2004, m.k.s is where all creative action lives: studio practice, experimental projects (including this one), interdisciplinary collaborations, and inventive workshops.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Keane has been a resident of New York City since 2001 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She maintains a exploration-centered studio practice that includes paintings and prints, and has previously included installation and multimedia works (hair, video, meat, music, zippers). Dedicated to making work that is personally meaningful, includes high attention to craft (or conscious lack thereof), and expresses aspects of our collective human condition, she is an exceptional artist, critic, and teacher.

Keane exhibits internationally, has had images of her paintings published in The New York Times, and is author of the essay "A Historical Overview of the Pregnant Nude in Western Art," published in exhibition catalog RIPE: Conception and Perception.

She is a frequent guest critic at graduate and undergraduate final reviews for Parsons The New School for Design in the Architecture, ID, and Architectural Lighting departments, as well as at Brooklyn College fine art printmaking courses. Recently she was an invited guest critic at University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, for final reviews of the MArch Sleep Studio.

Keane as a teaching artist has led countless drawing-based workshops in Brooklyn through Kentler International Drawing Space, sharing her artistic values and interests with others, all while nurturing and encouraging each participant's personal development of her/his unique modes of expression. International workshops include Workshop in New Materials at Art Museum Maribor, Slovenia; Professional Development for Art Teachers (in Spanish), with Project Creo, Quito, Ecuador; and Drawing in the Streets of Paris, in partnership with MICEFA exchange organization.

Keane is founder and co-producer of PROJECT NIHON / sustainable art travel in collaboration with her filmmaker brother, Michael Keane. PROJECT NIHON is an art and video experiment about making art in Japan for 25 days and giving it all away. The video is currently in post-production.

Paintings, drawings, and prints by Keane can be found in private collections in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, and select works on paper are available through The Kentler Flatfiles, Brooklyn, NY.