Uploaded February 2017 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
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Shelagh Keeley is a 2017 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Directed by Maya Annik Bedward
Co-Production / Coproduction Canada Council for the Arts & Red Mammoth Media
Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
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Transcript:
I think drawing is a language, the notion of a non-verbal communication.
I think drawing is pretty primal. And I think all those things and intrigue me about it and the viscerality of it.
When I started out in the early 1970s, going to school it was very structured. It was still there in that drawing was preparatory.
I never saw it that way. I actually saw it as this open door I could go through so it just seemed like: oh, okay, I love drawing, I’m going to do this. Then I started drawing on walls. My very early work was a lot with wax and pigments and smearing of walls was actually my body movement on the wall – kind of this notion of marking the space with my body. It’s really being in the room and almost having the walls tell me what they want me to do.
I sort of think of life in a slightly fleeting manner.
I think vulnerability in the body and a permanence… all those things have been part of my work and probably the wall drawings that then disappear.
What makes something obsolete? You take it out of context or you bring it forward. It changes.
It's beautiful, and it's also... the ephemeralness is partially what the viewer, I think, is aware of.
I’ve always been really inspired by poetry, and I think that actually drawing is like writing poetry. When we did the piece at the MOMA, of course both the artists’ archives that I chose that we looked at were both poets: Vito Acconci and James Byers.
That’s nice, books, open, breath flowing, flowing objects, envelopes, sand, hover across the table, blowing a pattern, flow, off a body, blowing it off of my own body.
I don’t make the separation between drawing and photography and film.
I draw really with the camera. To me they are all coming from the same source.
What is a drawing, or what is a wall drawing?
That changes, as you change, because you are continually evolving.
Please like this video and subscribe to support the arts in Canada.
Shelagh Keeley is a 2017 winner of the Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
Directed by Maya Annik Bedward
Co-Production / Coproduction Canada Council for the Arts & Red Mammoth Media
Presentation of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Independent Media Arts Alliance
The Canada Council for the Arts is a federal, arm's-length Crown corporation created by an Act of Parliament in 1957 (Canada Council for the Arts Act) "to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts."
For more information, visit: ggavma.canadacouncil.ca
****
Transcript:
I think drawing is a language, the notion of a non-verbal communication.
I think drawing is pretty primal. And I think all those things and intrigue me about it and the viscerality of it.
When I started out in the early 1970s, going to school it was very structured. It was still there in that drawing was preparatory.
I never saw it that way. I actually saw it as this open door I could go through so it just seemed like: oh, okay, I love drawing, I’m going to do this. Then I started drawing on walls. My very early work was a lot with wax and pigments and smearing of walls was actually my body movement on the wall – kind of this notion of marking the space with my body. It’s really being in the room and almost having the walls tell me what they want me to do.
I sort of think of life in a slightly fleeting manner.
I think vulnerability in the body and a permanence… all those things have been part of my work and probably the wall drawings that then disappear.
What makes something obsolete? You take it out of context or you bring it forward. It changes.
It's beautiful, and it's also... the ephemeralness is partially what the viewer, I think, is aware of.
I’ve always been really inspired by poetry, and I think that actually drawing is like writing poetry. When we did the piece at the MOMA, of course both the artists’ archives that I chose that we looked at were both poets: Vito Acconci and James Byers.
That’s nice, books, open, breath flowing, flowing objects, envelopes, sand, hover across the table, blowing a pattern, flow, off a body, blowing it off of my own body.
I don’t make the separation between drawing and photography and film.
I draw really with the camera. To me they are all coming from the same source.
What is a drawing, or what is a wall drawing?
That changes, as you change, because you are continually evolving.
