8” x 10” - Acrylic paint screen printed on colored heavyweight colored 176 g/m^2 hot pressed paper. Molotow acrylic paint pen and Charpak xylene marker added by hand.

As a child, the artist spent nearly every hot summer afternoon swimming at her grandparent’s pond. At the end of every swim, and at the request of their grandmother, they would feed the catfish - thanking them for letting the swimmers invade the creatures’ home for a few hours.

In 2020, Keating penned the pink catfish for the first time. Flying home to Kansas City from Chicago, she utilized the flight time to experiment with a hot pink paint pen. “I was just playing around,” says Keating, “testing the color and flow of the pen. The pink blobs started to look like fish from above, and I began to see that familiar childhood scene of feeding the catfish.”

“I fell in love with this omnipresent element of my childhood lovingly adorned with pink.” explains Keating. “Later I saw it as a covert way that I was unconsciously embracing and empowering my rural roots.”

“As a young woman I was bound and determined to leave my small town USA upbringing to find something ‘better’. After ten years of roving and realizing my ‘Big City Girl Dreams’ I was trying to find a way to integrate the things I loved so much about urban life with the place my heart would always call home.”

“Perhaps nothing is more frivolous and ‘fun just for the sake of fun’ as the color pink.” continues Rebecca, “Much like the frivolous fun urban life offered me off the farm, painting the catfish pink started to open my eyes to the possibility that I could merge these two worlds and enjoy ALL of the things I loved.”

Keating embraces the symbolism explicit in the use of pink to portray the catfish. To celebrate further, she places this screen print series on hyper chromatic colors. Glints of light and shadows are added to these screen prints by hand, making each piece in the series one of a kind.

Limited Edition Screen print series of 3 per color.

FEEDING THE FISH - GEN IV, 2021