Skip to content Skip to footer

Kira Keck

Stripped/Striped | 12″ x 12″ | Hand-embroidered cotton on Penelope canvas | 2018


Artist Statement

My work is informed by intensive textile processes, particularly embroidery and loom-based handweaving techniques, with concepts drawn from personal experience, Queer Theory, and the histories of fiber arts. I translate these ideas into functional and conceptual objects, bringing art into the everyday. Throughout my practice, I use the meta-textile, fabric mimicking another textile or a textile object that is self-aware, as a theoretical and technical framework. Hand making and digital processes allow me to explore pictorial representation, abstraction, illusion, and the tension between surface and structure. The work becomes manifold through each new procedure and apparatus, revealing its metaphorical qualities: concepts of gender performance, assimilation and resistance, genre, and Pastiche.

Artist Website + Social Media:
https://kirakeckportfolio.cargo.site/
Instagram @erotic_macrame

MR/QD Is Made Possible BY

Artists stipends made possible by Kresge Arts in Detroit

For details and more info on making a contribution to Mighty Real/Queer Detroit, please contact us at info@mrqd.org

About MR/QD

Mighty Real/Queer Detroit is an art exhibition in June 2022 devoted to 77 years (1945-2022) of Detroit LGBTQ+ art 

The exhibition presents a month-long historical examination of the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community and its longtime allies, featuring established & emerging Detroit artists, as well as artists whose careers were shortened by HIV/AIDS.

Mighty Real/Queer Detroit is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to promoting positive and meaningful images of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community through artistic and intellectual means. © 2023. All Rights Reserved.