A.R. Keiner

Instagram: @a.r.keiner

Website: http://alexisrobertskeiner.com

Bio: A.R KEINER in an Interdisciplinary artist. Though much of her work is in Painting and Drawing, she maintains a Social Practice working with families in the hours, days, weeks and months after the death of a child or caregiver. Since the unexpected death of their second child in 2012, A.R. has worked hundreds of people redefining memorial traditions and tearing down expectations of what it is to be a bereaved parent. Since 2017 she’s collaborated with associates in Anesthesiology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she lectures on Grief and Patient Narrative, and the intersection of Medicine, Advocacy, and Art. A.R. received an MFA in Art Practice from San Francisco State University School of Art in Spring of 2020. A.R. has presented their research at University of Chicago, Colorado College, Cal State LA, SFSU, and Stanford University. She was a 2021-2022 California Arts Council fellow. A.R. was born and raised in the unceded lands of the Deni'ina, and Tlingit people and credits this Alaskan upbringing for much of the visual vocabulary and deep ties to the natural world. In 2024 A.R. KEINER launched @TheFurtorialist, opening up a welcome levity to her practice.

Statement: Growing up in Alaska, seasons were determined by minutes of daylight gained or lost. The land behaved as a living breathing moving entity. I spent childhood avoiding wild animals, fearing clay that could liquify underfoot, and playing on the ruins of entire community brushed clean by tsunamis, fire, and earthquakes. In my lifetime I’ve seen the glaciers that carved mountains evaporate and die - and I’m only 43. It’s from this place of life, death, resilience, mourning, and joy that this work centering the avalanche emerges. The Fragments series is a conversation between two times. This fragment is torn from a series of 100 self portraits drawn in 100 days shortly after the birth of our 3rd child. The drawing serves as a ground for the painting made almost a decade later.