Keariene Muizz

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Keariene Muizz (pronounced /kierˈi:ˈn/; born November 18, 1977) is a contemporary American painter known for depicting the statues of Paris and incorporating the psychoanalytic literature of Sigmund Freud into her artistic theories.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 2 References

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Muizz was born in Chicago, Illinois. Muizz's mother is Black American of Jewish Ethiopian (Falasha) descent. Her father is an American of African and Native descent, as his maternal grandmother was full Cherokee and lived on a reservation in Oklahoma. Muizz's mother was a college sophomore in Chicago when she met her father. Keariene is named after a Japanese coworker her mother grew extremely close to during her pregnancy. Shortly before her birth, her father converted to Islam. They divorced when Muizz was nine.

Keariene moved sporadically across the United States throughout her life. She attended three high schools her freshman year and eventually graduated from Whittier High School. A mathematician, she was one of two hundred paid fellows selected out of two thousand applicants to participate in the Math Intensive Summer Session (M.I.S.S.) program at California State University of Fullerton where Muizz studied geometry for eight hours a day and lived on the college campus before entering her junior year of high school. Her creative beginnings expanded during this time as she began sculpting, gaining the attention of various faculty members. Her logical approach to interpreting her environment would be applied to every facet of her life. This detail would also be reflected later in her love of illustrating Parisian architecture and sculpture.

[edit] Career

At the age of nineteen the young artist began collecting paint supplies with the intention of shifting from sketch pad to canvas, not knowing she would become one of the most noted outsider artists to enter the contemporary scene in decades. She would explain it later to the Associated Press^[1] as, "...a knot in my heart that I could not untie with words." It was not until the adventurous and reclusive Muizz went to Europe for six weeks, traveling alone to England, Greece, Italy, and eventually France that she would commit to her artistic path. Upon her return she completed her first painting, a portrait of her older sister, mastering the discipline on her first try.

Living in Paris was a lifelong dream Muizz held since the age of three. Upon her return to Los Angeles she devised an investment strategy that would shape her life forever. Taking advantage of the stock market's golden tech bubble, she personally saved over twenty thousand dollars in less than a year, self-financing her move to Paris in 2000. After being accepted into the School of Computer Science at the American University of Paris, the computer programming major was told there were very few students from "working class" backgrounds and was urged to leave by a new employee. After taking her grievances to a seasoned and supportive faculty member she decided to explore other educational options. Entering La Sorbonne in 2000 she studied Middle Age French Civilization and obtained a research permit at the National Library of France. Muizz dubbed the library "The New Alexandria" and completed an educational undertaking which included absorbing all twenty four volumes of "The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud", "The Complete Works of Plato", various Greek plays, and a review of Australian Aboriginal culture, in addition to her studies. Each of these topics would be intricately woven in her artistic theories and forms of expression.

At the end of her first semester at La Sorbonne, Muizz identified the body of her friend Jeanette O'Keefe. The murder would produce post traumatic shock in Muizz. The incident was also the first of three immense traumas that visited Muizz back-to-back over the span of a year. Later undiagnosed symptoms that accompanied her ptsd were agoraphobia and anhedonia. Losing her sense of safety in the world the life of Muizz transformed to black and white. It was in Paris where Muizz would stumble upon her groundbreaking subject, the statues, as Keariene would come to fixate upon decoding the secret meaning housed within stone. Defining stone as "abstract flesh" Muizz would subsequently become the originator of an unconventional school of thought, challenging her "stone" subjects to break form through a new medium, systematically rearranging the statues fixed poses using paint.

Returning to Orange County, California, in 2002, the distressed artist had already painted in secret for many years and never intended to sell her work professionally. Fellow artist, Maria Carradore, who was also the head designer of St. John Knits, began spreading the word about Muizz's work in Newport Coast. Within weeks renown Italian art critic Valerio Grimaldi requested the contemporary artist to participate in the Vico del Gargano International Art Show. In addition, her research efforts pertaining to Freudian psychology were recognized by the American Psychoanalytic Association in 2005, a distinction usually reserved for doctoral students. In the years to come the work of Muizz would be hand delivered to several billionaires. Partnerships with French investors and chief interior design firms would later lead to the formation of Muizz Gallery in Orange County. In 2008 Keariene Muizz became one of the few select artists officially sponsored by the Da Vinci Paint Company.

Haunted by the unsolved murder of Jeanette O'Keefe^[2] Muizz revealed the dimensions of her grief through the unveiling of the Sacred Stones Collection. Noted as the first artist in history to depict the tombs of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

With a desire to reveal creativity in everyday life Keariene Muizz continuously treads the unexplored. Muizz is also the first artist to have an exhibit at a cemetery. In collaboration with the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, the R.I.P. (Remembering Is Possessing) Art Exhibit placed the Sacred Stones series on display for the public and members of grief support groups in 2008. Mourners were encouraged to place letters to their beloved in an open casket which contained a triptych of the praying statue of Heloise at rest, while the spirit of Heloise's persecuted lover Abelard loomed in the background.

[edit] References