I want my paintings to be almost cinematic and to absorb the viewer … so that they can be in the landscape … in that moment.
When I reflect on my painting over these years I think what stands out for me is my maturing relationship to place, how slowly the landscape moved from 'object' to 'subject' in the paintings. This coincides with a growing love of the particular, such as Narawntapu National Park, the Cornelian Bay walk or the seascapes of Greens Beach or the Freycinet Peninsula. Familiar, often overlooked places have become for me subjects of transcendence through the agency of the distinctive Tasmanian light.
For me now painting has become all about light.
- David Keeling, 2024
David Keeling is recognised as one of Australia’s leading landscape painters, with an impressive exhibition history spanning over four decades. In recent significant recognition of his work the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery staged the important retrospective exhibition David Keeling: Stranger in 2020-2021, an exhibition celebrating the achievements of an artist at the height of his career.
A multiple time prize winner, including the Glover Prize twice, Keeling has also been recognised by the Australia Council through international residencies in Verdaccio, London and Rome and the monograph, David Keeling, was published in 2007. His work is held in the collections of numerous national and state institutions, including the National Gallery of Victoria, the Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the National Gallery of Australia, and has been collected by corporate and private collections nationally and internationally.