Keeping House Art Exhibition

Keeping House is an inquiry into tactile beauty and societal ugliness in the life of a Queer femme working as a maid. Cleaning, like art, uses tools and potions to change the perception of objects and surfaces. The artist manipulates tools used in the work of cleaning to remove their use value and transform them into objects worthy of careful consideration. In reducing the presence of the implements of cleaning to golden shapes, drawn lines and rectangular abstractions, the essential elements of functional design are presented with new context. As the figure interacts with these manipulated objects the matter of gendered hierarchical relationships to physical labor is exposed. The exaggeration of curves, deep color saturation, and use of reflective materials moves these formerly invisible connections into the realm of hypervisible. Invoking the precise repetition and stamina honed over decades working as a Master Printer, Ceci reveals parallels between high art and what is mislabeled as unskilled labor.

Ceci is a nationally recognized artist and whose extensive exhibition history includes the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Contemporary Art Center New Orleans and The International Print Center New York. Amongst the many permanent collections in which one finds Ceci’s work are the Library of Congress, Zuckerman Museum of Art, The Austin History Center,  the Manhattan Graphics Center and the National Women’s History Museum.