Artist Statement
Diego Keen (b. 1995, currently residing in Portland, OR.) is a multimedia artist currently working in soft sculpture and found object. But he has a history with digital, installation, and sound mediums. Born in Las Vegas, New Mexico, Diego has always centered his rural upbringing as a source of personal nostalgia and virtue. Diego’s current focus is on the small apocalypses we encounter on a daily basis. Using humor and absurdity as a guiding principle, Diego seeks to emphasize everyday objects as stand-ins for large scale problems that affect our globalized world. He does this through the use of the audience's preconception with the source material and the disruptions made to it. Pulling from cartoonish aesthetics, the work visually resembles and makes references to mid-century animated pop culture standouts such as Looney tunes and Disney. Parsing entertainment and pop culture, the works resemble that of pop art, but shy away from the vanity and superfluity to allude to more homemade and craft aesthetics.