Keenan O’Toole in her studio at the Center for the Visual Arts at Kent State University. Canvas Photo / Amanda Koehn
Age: 29 • Lives and creates: Kent • Learns: Bachelor’s degree from Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario; pursuing MFA with ceramics concentration from Kent State University
Keenan O’Toole uses color and form to create beauty in ceramics reminiscent of things that might be considered industrial, deteriorating or even gross.
The Toronto native is working toward her Master of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in ceramics from Kent State University. Expected to graduate in spring 2025, the artist pushes what is considered beautiful to include “things that are traditionally seen as not nice and kind of grotesque and even things that are ‘disgusting,’” she says.
“I think I’m drawn to the sense of crudeness,” she says, surrounded by several recent creations in her studio on Kent’s campus.
O’Toole graduated from an arts-focused high school in Toronto. After taking ceramics lessons post-high school, she pursued the medium during her undergraduate years at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario and in post-graduate studies at Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary.
“For me, art has always been a way to negotiate and investigate interpersonal conflicts, and is also a meditative process,” she says. “I’ve just always liked to be creative whether it was performing or building or just collaborating with people a lot growing up.”
After moving back to Toronto when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she helped manage a pottery school for adults, created commissions for restaurants, made her own work and had it featured in shows there.
Keenan O’Toole’s “Inscapes” installation (2024). Ceramic, glaze, paint, plaster, wood, 240 x 120 x 72 inches. Photo courtesy of the artist.
As American schools have more opportunities for advanced education in the arts than Canada, O’Toole says she chose to pursue her master’s at Kent for the quality of its ceramics program and the “generous” stipend and support it offers. Still, she says moving to another country and away from her family for the two-year program had its challenges.
Now in her second year, O’Toole has a specific focus on making “almost like industrial inscapes of non-existent architecture.” She takes inspiration from growing up in a city, the scaffolding, piping and unassuming pieces that make it run, and reinterprets and abstracts them into what she calls “disordered cityscapes.” And much like the infrastructure of an old city, she likes to teeter on the edge of collapse, pushing the clay to its limits in size and shape.
“There’s a lot of decision-making while it’s happening,” she says of making her hand-built, pinched clay creations. “… I’ll spend a lot of time thinking about different kinds of layering techniques and color, but I like this idea of pastel and using the surface as a sense of the passage of time. Also, (it’s) like an ode to freezing the firing process. … How can I capture that chemical change and process happening in that kiln, which I try to do with my surfaces.”
She notes pastel shades can create a playful feel to ceramics, but with her industrial shapes might appear more gnarly. They may portray moldiness, abandonment or something that’s deteriorating, pushing viewers to see these qualities in a new way.
Another theme in her work is organizing chaos, referencing the gritty insides of maybe pretty architecture.
“It’s all about the inside of the things that you don’t want to see, bringing it out into the front,” she says.
O’Toole has had a busy summer and early fall, both showing art and taking workshops. Over the summer, she received a Kent State scholarship to take part in a workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado and participated in the Kent Blossom Art Intensive, a two-week studio art program involving visiting artists, demonstrations, critiques and making new work. In September, she had solo space for her artwork at the SPRING/BREAK Art Show in New York City. Her work was received well there, and it was a great opportunity to show to a larger audience, she says. She’s also recently shown at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati and several galleries in Canada, among others.
O’Toole also recently helped curate and had work on view in a group show, “Yard Work” in an Akron DIY outdoor gallery space, Plzdontmow. And, she’s working on her MFA project for a spring show.
“It will be something with these kind of like larger sculptures, the abstracted industrial spaces kind of thing,” she says. “I’m kind of building up to it now.”
As a graduate student who is also teaching undergraduates and working as a studio assistant at Kent, she notes one challenge of pursuing a career in the arts is balancing creating your own work and teaching, often to supplement income. She says while it’s good there are a lot teaching opportunities now, especially since pottery classes are popular, doing it all can be a balancing act.
Another challenge is her medium itself and striving to shift her process along the way, improving her technique and results.
“Working with clay in general there’s a lot of failure, and there’s a lot of … (having to be) resilient with the material itself,” she says. “Especially building in this way, I have to recalibrate things and pivot.”
– Amanda Koehn
WHAT OTHERS SAY
“Keenan has been an excellent addition to our MFA program and adds so much energy to our community. She is extremely dedicated to her art practice and driven to continually push her work forward. She is fearless in her approach, always willing to try new things and take risks. I think she is making some really amazing and adventurous work right now that blends her drawing practice with her sculptural work. I expect her thesis exhibition in April to be outstanding and look forward to seeing what she does after finishing up at Kent State.”
Peter Christian Johnson, associate professor of art and ceramics area head, Kent State University
