Today we’d like to introduce you to Keegan Carter.
Hi Keegan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My story really starts with curiosity. It’s the only connecting theme between all of my experiences in live. In old terms, I’m a suit and a creative, but I’ve really live the suit aspect of the equation in public. I grew up in NJ and went to school in Washington, D.C. (Georgetown). My story, there was college athlete chomping at the bits of becoming a successful businessman. I studied marketing, ran an on-campus business club, worked in the SVP’s office and co-founded a mobile app company from my dorm. I was all-in on business. After graduating, I declined my job offers in corporate retail to pursue another start-up (which my parents hated). I worked in commercial real estate, corporate retail, drove for Uber, delivered for Instacart, etc. Whatever it took to bring some money home and stay afloat while working on the startup, I was up for it. The company was called MOOR and we built mobile games for celebrities during the mobile gaming craze. I went from part-time to full-time through the odd jobs and learned a tremendous amount about myself.
Our biggest success was launching Fetty Wap’s full feature mobile game in 2016. Although this was a big win, the company plateaued. We couldn’t replicate the model and continue the momentum. Shortly after, Google reached out on LinkedIn and said that I might be a good fit for a role they had open. They liked my diverse experience and background and within three weeks, I was moving from NJ to Silicon Valley to work for one of the biggest companies in the world. I loved my time at Google, but things got stressful after a year or so. I was doing well, but I found myself bringing work home and my mind racing at night through things to get done. I’m naturally a thinker, so living in my head wasn’t a new phenomenon to me. So I searched for things that might help and landed on painting. I remembered my days as a child and teenager and how much I cherished those temporary mindless moments and wondered if I could “get that old thing back,” so I started painting again in 2018. I painted wherever and whenever I could. My living room and bathroom became my studio and my mind started to unravel at home.
Soon I started approaching the craft with more intention and pulling in concepts and themes from other experiences I’d had and within a few months was creating full works based on different styles and approaches. I don’t want to make it sound like it happened just like that, but it sort of did. I believe that the passion was always there, just dormant. In that time period, I found my love for acrylic paint on different materials and the concept of layers. Toward the end of 2019, I had decided that I wanted to spend some time outside of Tech, corporate America and the US as a whole with everything that was going on. I wanted to travel more, cook more, experience more and of course, paint more. So I left Google and also decided to have an art show at the top of the year. I wanted to wish my friends in the Bay goodbye before I took off and also wanted to simply show everyone what I had painted over the past couple years as well as announce that I was an artist. May not seem like a big deal, but for someone who had always considered themselves a suit it was a big step. The show was titled “IAMWHATIAM.” I told everyone that I was an artist, that I had left my job, that I was going to travel and ultimately that I was moving to Mexico City to become more inspired by their art culture and paint more.
I moved to CDMX at the beginning of 2020 and loved it. So much food, culture, art, greenery and people. I was living the life I had never viewed myself living and was loving it until COVID hit. My time in Mexico City was cut short and I then spent the next seven months living in between airbnbs with my partner, afraid to go home or back to Mexico under the current conditions. I then decided to have a 2nd art show in Brooklyn, NY, themed after the racial tension in the States. So much pressure was being put around the work “Black,” but I felt like we had forgotten just how beautiful the color is in itself. Dictionary.com lists the word as synonymous with “inhuman” and “dirty,” so I set out to redefine the word through art at my show “Keegan.Black.” The show went well and attendees responded well to the art as well as the curation. I then decided to move to Atlanta, GA in 2021.
I had spent some time after bouncing around trying to figure out what environment I wanted to truly delve into. I was tired of not having a home and was looking for a handful of things: an ascendant black community, an art scene, a warm climate, an affordable economy to invest in a home and studio and a place where beautiful memories could be made. Atlanta clearly took the top spot. The move and a few trips to the desert inspired my most recent show, “Keegan. Texture,” which strived to get people to “feel again” through art since we are coming out of a long stretch where we’ve been deadly afraid to touch anything and everyone. The show, featuring ceramicist Jenna Zeidan, honed earth tone colors and desert themes to execute the vision and occurred on July 10th in downtown Atlanta. Sorry for the long journey to this point, but that pretty much sums it up!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’m not sure any road I’ve ever been on is smooth. Struggles are a part of the process. I’d say fortunately for me; the biggest struggled have been internal and not external. My fight was with my own growth, development, perspective and maturity. Working through what people, including my family, would think about me jumping ship at what could be considered the best opportunity I’ve had in life thus far. Or wondering if me not going to an art school or having formal training makes me less of an artist than others. I’m still learning more about myself everyday and uncovering new unexplored parts of myself. That process is never smooth, haha.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’ve worked in Tech for the past few years and most recently with Pinterest. My core job is advertising sales, which basically means that I help companies advertiser to consumers on the platform by developing strategies, scaling marketing plans and growing their presence within the Pinterest ecosystem. This has been my job that I do enjoy, but my painting passion has grown tremendously over the past two years. I’ve cultivated three solo produced shows in 3 different major cities across the US and have continued honing my craft and developing a style that I can call my own.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Experiences. New places, new people, new techniques and seeing other people happy. People ask me all the time if I want to paint “full time” so I can paint all day and my response is “absolutely not” every time. There really isn’t one thing on earth that I want to do everyday. My art is wholly driven by what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen, who I’ve meet, what I’ve tasted, etc. The moment I stopped doing those things is the moment I starve my craft and feed unhappiness.
Contact Info:
- Email: keegan@keegancarter.com
- Website: keegancarter.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/complexcarter
Image Credits:
Jaren Higgins, Jenna Zeidan, Robyn Cross
