LEFT: Kehoe’s
analysis of a vase of
fl owers in Peonies
(oil on panel,
12x10) stresses
the structure or
“architecture” of
her subject.OPPOSITE: In SP
with red ribbon
(oil on panel,6x6)
Kehoe’s approach
to self-portraiture
embraces sharp ob-
servation with a bit
of playacting. A red
ribbon introduces a
touch of color with
a wry hint of humor.“Radical Attention” was the appropriately
titled exhibition of Catherine Kehoe’s paintings held in 2013 at
Boston’s Howard Yezerski Gallery (now Miller Yezerski Gallery).
Th e name lives up to what she refers to as a body of work that
manifests the discipline of “fi erce looking” she considers integral
to her method as a painter. Fierce indeed. In her 27-year career
as a painter studying, living and working in the Boston area, she
has earned a national reputation. Her work consists primarily of
mysterious and witty still lifes that exist at the edge of abstrac-
tion and a series of sharply observed self-portraits notable for
their clarity and truth. Th e still lifes are transformative: Th ings
as disparate as a bright yellow rubber dish glove,
plastic grapes and a pinecone cohabit with the
otherworldly grace of objects that could have
existed in a box construction by Joseph Cornell.
Th e self-portraits are notable for their variety
and invention as well as their sharp self-scrutiny.
LEARNING TO SEE Catherine Kehoe’s
path to becoming an artist was not direct. Her
father, a sign painter with a talent for drawing
cartoons, encouraged her, but not to the extent
“SELF-PORTRAITS ARE A RECORD OF WHAT
THE ACT OF LOOKING LOOKS LIKE.” CATHERINE KEHOE
DECEMBER 2016 37
36 _tam 1216 Kehoe.indd 37 9 / 27 / 16 8 : 17 AM