2007 | WONDER KEPT: SOUVENIRS OF THE UNEXPECTED | PERSONAL WORK

Emerging Talent No. 2: Keetra Dean Dixon
“Her projects appear effortless and intuitive in their creation, and outrageously beautiful and smart. The work is refreshing, confident and conceptually airtight,” says Kali Nikitas, chair of Communication Arts at Otis College of Art and Design, Keetra Dean Dixon’s former teacher at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). Dixon’s personal works—typically socially themed public art pieces—employ humor, play and notes of cynicism to underscore her overall themes. “As a whole,” says Dixon, “this work has continued to become more aesthetically cohesive, laced with whimsy, irreverence and reflections of my everyday environment. It is developing into an extension of personal identity.” Projects include Wonder Kept, where what appeared to be a standard photo-taking booth was left in semipublic places. Users would enter to pose as usual, but what they received were photos enhanced and customized with “forecasts” consisting of patterns, symbols and messages. Another project, her Blood Splatter Pillow, shows sleeping people apparently gruesomely injured.

In client work Dixon has often taken on a contrarian’s point of view, using an unflattering reflection of the client’s persona to develop more effective messaging. “But recently my client requests have been swinging in a flattering direction, a coauthoring approach,” says Dixon. “The end results often intertwine my personal styling preferences and attitude with their brand POV.” Both her personal and client work share many of the same qualities. “The work’s form is guided by the intended experience,” explains Dixon. “The experience is guided by a few key objectives. The general wish is to make people smile.” When asked for specifics, she responds with a list of what her work aspires to:
—instilling wonder in the daily routine
—encouraging patience and optimism in unexpected circumstances
—building an attentive community
—combating cynicism, pessimism and passivity
—facilitating social relations
—breaking understood patterns and standards

Born and raised in Alaska, Dixon holds a BFA from MCAD, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Now living in New York, she works under the handle FromKeetra, as well as being designer-at-large for the Rockwell Group LAB, a research and development group in an architectural firm. Prior to this she was an art director with the famed motion graphics studio Brand New School. Her accomplishments have been recognized by a number of publications and organizations, including San Francisco MOMA and The Art Directors Club (ADC). Noémie Bonnet, ADC Young Guns program manager, says, “Keetra’s work is full of light. Often quirky and always spirited, her unique, calculated whimsy is a handprint all her own—one can already point at her work and say, unmistakably, that’s FromKeetra.”
www.fromkeetra.com | www.lab.rockwellgroup.com