Alessandro Keegan
The invisible forces that govern our lives have many connotations, it's called god, spirit, science, and even mysticism. The one domain that often blends many of these subjects together can be found in Art, a kind that makes us still question how much existence and its science or the origin is truly discovered. The artist Alessandro Keegan, currently based in the US, touches the atmosphere of our such curiosities. With his paintings and drawings, he speaks of the intelligence of various metaphysical and pseudoscience phenomena that amalgamates the ideas of multiple interests leaving one straddled with questions on our possibilities of ascension. The encounter of ascension that you might have heard Terence McKenna advocating about on the exploration of altered states of mind via the ingestion of naturally occurring psychedelic substances.
We at coeval had an extraordinary interview with him that we are very humbled for. You can also see His ideas and works as the subjects of a short documentary called “The Matter of Mind”, released in 2020 by Full Moon Films.
Let's begin with your pivotal moment of life while experimenting with LSD in your teenage years. Can you please take us through your experience and feelings of that moment along with your encounter with the transcendental world?
If I recall I vaguely remember the times I was in my teen years, around 16 or 17 I guess when I was beginning to explore the nature of psychedelic substances. This one evening with friends I was having another LSD experience which made me have this particular vision, past my walks in the woods and resting myself in thorn full bushes. It began with my viewing of the starry sky and stars morphing itself with a kind of information download or you may call it a sensory view of these blob of globular structures of higher intelligent beings that you may hear often times Terrance McKenna speaking of, to be communicating with one another with no language but a highly subtle frequency of conscious exchange. I was hardly 17 years old. At that age comprehending such knowledge was hard and as I grew old I began to get a hold of what it was really. I guess this is how it is mostly, I don't know but I feel one never really knows about their transcendental or altered state of mind until they get out of it and allow time to unravel.
How was your life before this experience, like your childhood or early teenage.. and what did it take for you to integrate and anchor down this knowledge and wisdom to one direction? What exactly is it like to put it all together through your art?
While one is struggling to learn about the human self and life that is surrounded by, like any other ordinary case of growth I too have experienced both upstreams and downs teams which build me to who I am of course. I always kept my art as the psychological and emotional support through my struggling phases right from the high school years. I indulged myself in constant exploration of my experiences .I had some weird instances such as sleep paralysis and even out-of-body experiences without any substances many times. Such experiences have shaped my mind to a certain kind of sensitivity you can say.
Later for a brief moment as if intended by the universe, I did also have experience with a diamond grading lab here in America. While I was observing the diamonds under the microscope, I suddenly was pulled to work on my art again. The structure of reflections within the transparency of the diamond gave me the clarity that I was looking for I think. That was it, I began putting things together and continued my further studies and artistic practices.
Stereotypically your work falls under the surreal genre encapsulating a sort of science fiction so how would you describe the mental state that you hold in your mind? What is it like for you to carry the complex structure and molecule of such creativity?
I am well aware of why and I would say because it cannot be explained and the elements and compositions resemble such subjects, but I never intend to focus or ever try to work with genre. Particularly yes i can say i have been influenced by many genres and maybe what i do reflects many of them but I have stripped the concept of genre from my work as I began finessing the art all these years. I don't belong to any genre particularly and as somebody who did study art history, I am certain that my work doesn't fall in any particular domain as such. I do not call myself a surrealist or sci fi artist, but yes I like both of them and in fact did spend a good time of my school years enjoying sci-fi…. I could say I want to be a scientist if I were in school but that didn't happen as I fell short of the eligibility. I find myself in varied flows and clusters of emotions when I'm working on pieces such as trance or meditation. I get lost in the process, the concept of time fades away, my intentions too but sometimes I feel despair , restlessness and obsession. Once when the work is done i feel a strange sense of relief and joy. That feeling is what keeps me going. As far as genre is concerned i like people to have their own interpretations but mainly if i had to say it is a visual representation of my meditative states that i tap in while working. People may call it alter states but i stay very conscious while doing so i don't know and when i look at it, it feels like something other than me and what i know of me as self. I was surprised by myself. It's a great feeling.
Coming on the usage of the color gradations, materials, pigments and achieving the visual presentation and chromatic parameters of your art? How do you work on it? What all goes into that?
As strange as it may sound I used simple linseed oil with oil paint, my brushes and the very traditional tools, no stencils or photographic reference or anything of that sort, just basic geometry tools. I work on the finished idea for the compositions at first and by selecting the background gradation and atmosphere my choice for colors makes the painting move forward. I like to use unusual almost alien colors to put them together, something that is not seen regularly. I take it on canvas or wood or linen. Earlier to my school and college years of course i did use many mediums even until 10 years ago i was using, ink , random things from my surrounding, random subjects even human figurines, i did stick even crystals at times as the body of subject sitting on my work but say about 6 to 7 years ago it was too much and i stripped down all of those directions to one simple medium. What you see in my recent works is the minimal form of all of the work I have gone through. I can say i always had certain elements of what i am working on now in all of those works. But i reduced all of that experimentation of various subjects to one line and began taking it forward. So what you see now is the very much a kind of the finessness of all that is explored and experimented.
Your work is immortal and transcends the concept of time and space there is no doubt about it. Me being very much in awe with your work I wonder a bit about futurism right now. So say hypothetically ..down the line 100 years ahead, What impacts do you imagine your work to be creating?
As someone teaching art history in college I always teach my students about the unknown which leads to the subject of having no time and space. Art itself is very much about transcending this idea. But when it comes to my work I hope my work even exists in the future for that long, but now because I know the artists who were famous in the past in their times no one knows about them and the artists like Van Gough who were struggling to survive are known by everybody. This remains a question of curiosity but i guess when sci fi becomes more prominent it might be used in comic books sometimes, this is just my random guess may be something more can happen we don't know, it depends on the future, A future where i wont be there the generation z would be in there old age , who knows what's going to happen anyway …
What is mediumistic art? Can you explain its state of trance and the feelings?
I gave a lecture on this before and it's an intense subject to touch but to simplify, it's the art that is done by the artist's absence of own consciousness and authority. Many times they are considered mentally ill in medical terms; it's even called schizophrenia sometimes. There are many degrees to what lengths it goes, The artist, one great example say Paulina Peavy (1901 - 1999), channels down a spirit or an entity / the non physical, it uses the artist as a medium to express something. The other part of this is also called as automatic writing. Now, because I have had my mind go through the experiences of the altered state , I can say I very well understand the sensitivity of this, I have studied a lot on this and have an understanding of the nophysicial and parapsychological. I hold a fair amount of knowledge in it. While I work I find myself in a meditative state, I believe many artists go through this feeling but I would like to be clear I am not a mediumistic artist as I hold full authority of my work and remain conscious and in alignment of my thoughts and body. The knowledge and my intelligence to understand this subject surely very much helps me to work in certain discipline close to mediumistic but not really..
You explore the alternate realms of reality building a psychological and spiritual ascension. What advice you'd like to give to the people seeking answers in the world. In other words, what do you wish that people be more aware, conscious, or sincere about in the current day and age?
I hesitate to provide any advice to anyone but I would say acknowledgment of something other than the physical and letting go of the nihilistic and materialistic approach to life can help in relation to continuing the small shifts in life, within your room , house, city or maybe your workplaces. To follow something outside of self, that leads to change and when that change becomes a good habit it leads to a productive pattern. When you view the world more than just from a physical perspective and see your relation and part with your surroundings and the world it provides a deeper understanding of life. Like water it is more than just liquid, you see the nature of it and how it changes with situations and treatments, or the light how it reacts in different spaces. Everything is here to teach and guide us; one must just remain open. I am into panpsychism which says everything has consciousness and it opens the door to a bit greater senses and of our own personal sense of responsibility and fragility of the mortal being that we are in this giant cosmic web we live in. Simply de-emphasising the material and re-emphasising the spiritual or the non physical / the unknown the invisible is a good way to go.
What genre of music artists do you often listen to… how does it influence your work and psyche?
I listen to weird music, I used to listen to dark or sad music even underground and industrial or noise music like Throbbing Gristle, Coil and Current 93. I do like electronic music or a soft something in the background that makes the atmosphere, for my own take I listen to something experimental and atmospheric which induces a certain kind of mood while I'm working. I love investigating obscure and niche genres. It helps my work.
What do you feel about the plant medicines and the recreational retreats that are emerging now and what would you like to say about the healing and evoking powers of such experiences?
This is an interesting sign of our times isn't it? The micro dosing project is quite popular too here in Silicon Valley for the executives. I guess it's talking about making people more efficient and productive in some sense. I don't know but I see it as antithetical to the actual experience. I have eaten a small amount of psilocybin what you call mushroom and can be considered microdosing in a way. It makes one a bit woozy and stoned but I don't see it as making someone productive as a business person. It seems a kind of aggressive capitalist mentality, a bit of wolf of wall street's type with the actor leonardo di caprio as lead you know? It doesn't seem like a corporate production kind of drug to me like how caffeine is, you know, i find it so mysterious though. As we see the growing interest in mediumistic art and other alter state dynamics. May be the rising appeal is because certain systems say economic, political , ecological are seeming to spin so out of control that we looking for the fields and alternative paths for help. The only way I see this rise is because psychedelics shut down certain sensory parts of the brain and activate and function the other. Maybe it may transform us and transcend from the veil of the world. Maybe we have some hope that we will find ourselves in a better place through this experience. I think it's fascinating. I don't know about the rest of the world but definitely here in the United States it's growing popular.
Let's get on with the problems of the world. It existed earlier, exists now and so would also in the future. What are the things that you don't like about the physical reality of our lives? What is the philosophy that helps you to navigate ahead? What advice you have for people
Well I completely unplugged myself from the 21st century whenever it got too much for me and retreated into the time of no time the time of no history haha i don't know what i'm saying but you know what i mean.. I think a large part of the feelings of our anxiety on mass scale as collective, globally comes from our own mind our own neuro feedback loop where we create these spheres of loop ,that's not to say there aren't any real issues that to be dealt with that we need to take actions on and create the change..you know I am just a person who makes paintings and is a art historian i don't know what is the best strategy for dealing with these but i feel unplugging from nihilistic thoughts and holding of “we are only one that is” kind of mentality that feeds this machiavellian approach and attitude can make things easy and can change the things around us. Also you know it's kind of magical because it can shift our own lives this way and then change your own personal settings within our room or house within the workplace in town or city whatever it has this ripple effect and can be used as a shift for the global system. If i have to advice id say to begin with micro transformations with conscious thoughts and attention to details that can the shift things for what you need.
Speaking of altered states of mind, what are the films that strike you at this moment regarding this notion?
You know jag and we spoke about this earlier before the interview as well but you know i watch lot of films and specifically horror genre and every now and then i do come across some very interesting films especially recently i see a lot of them where they go into this zeitgeist moment where people are micro dosing that grows also into a kind of mediumistic art i'm noticing more and more into the popular culture in netflix shows and movies and stuff which revolves around the themes related to my work. I saw a movies by the director Ben Wheatly like “A field in england” and “Kill list” which is very rough i don't recommend for everyone to watch and then “in the earth” It's dark but this is what i find interesting something related parapsychology it my own filter in eyes and i view things only through such lenses i guess.
What is spirituality for you and what future do you imagine for spiritual practices?
Just looking at the 20th century to the 21st century I have noticed that technological language has become increasingly a part of how we talk about the spiritual conditions. Especially when we talk about something esoteric, or gnostic thought etc …and one of the features that has emerged in the last few decades is that we are living in some kind of simulation like something mentioned in matrix movies. This language, the idea of simulation like the universe is like coding and life is a video game you know.. this language has come to the surface because of the technology we have begun to use. And say in the 20th century we talked about higher beings and ascended masters etc coming from different places and ufo phenomena etc.. so if i had to say on what i see as the future of spirituality the invisible world would not change it will always remain the same which is always impossible to comprehend in words but i do think as technology will grow which inevitably it will we will have a different frame of reference and different language to talk about as we evolve.
For me spirituality is to just keep in touch with the invisible to explore and try to experience whatever it has for me, anyone can do this from whatever background and religious framework you come from. I say i have no particular school of religion i study all and it all talks the same which is the acknowledgement of the invisible and non physical.
Current exhibition:
“Matches Struck Unexpectedly in the Dark” at Oneroom Gallery, 9 French Place, London, UK. It includes works by Dave Kinsey, Kemi Onabule, Anna Krzanowska, Antonio Fabozzi and Michael Chance.
interview JAGRATI MAHAVER
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