John Keatley (b. 1980) moved to a small town of 5,000 in Northern California at the impressionable age of seven. Keatley was shaped by his environment, feeling isolated and restless in a small town, always wishing to be somewhere else. Those wide and lonely California landscapes, that once felt like a trap, are often reflected in the work he creates. He remained there until moving to Seattle, Washington in 1999.
His photography career has grown steadily, with a sense of restlessness pushing him to keep exploring. While receiving awards and recognition for his portraits of Annie Leibovitz, Macklemore, and Anthony Hopkins was satisfying, the need persisted to explore ideas outside of commercial photography. Through a process of introspection, Keatley discovered a passion for fine art and self-expression through his photography. Once his series, Uniform, was framed and hung in his first solo exhibition in 2017, Keatley felt he had finally found the outlet he had been looking for to express ideas that he has wrestled with throughout his career. His first book, Uniform, was released in 2019.
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