Terra Keck breathes life into her dark, ghostly canvases through a process of removal

At first glance, Terra Keck’s artworks don’t look made by hand. Some look like they could be experimental works by early surrealist photographers of the 1920s, others look like a ghostly plant under the microscope, and some are akin to shadow puppet shows. In subject, her works deal with the most unifying and fundamental aspect of our humanity – the universe within which we live. To create this sense of all encompassing darkness, punctuated by small instances of light like celestial bodies, Terra actually removes layers of graphite and watercolour, rather than adding them. This, Terra says, “alludes to the importance of what is left behind and the negative space in our cosmic story”.

Naturally, through exploring such unknown depths, Terra also interrogates the “metaphor of the UFO”. But rather than exploring the question of whether other life, beings or apparitions share our universe from a militaristic angle (as common in popular cinema) or from a conspiracy angle (as is often peddled online), Terra instead approaches the UFO question “from the angle that our universe is, at its core, benevolent”, she says. In her eerie, quietly beautiful paintings, the existence of other life is given an intriguing, mystical quality rather than one of impending threat or danger. “Spiritually, the work is generated in response to the broad consensus that the future is cancelled,” says Terra. “When things feel so uncertain, what are earthlings supposed to do but look up and out at an opaque and glittering emptiness and dream of someone who travelled a thousand lightyears just to catch a glimpse of us?”