Bailey Keogh in her studio in Berlin. Photo: Niels Lucke
Bailey Keogh’s practice works across hybrid media, including video and acid etchings on stainless steel. Her work is rooted in misinformation, disinformation, and media literacy, often combining intimacy and critique to challenge how narratives are constructed and consumed.
You work with acid etchings on stainless steel: can you explain the process to us?
Yes, the acid I use is called ferric chloride. I discovered it when I had the idea of making my own circuit boards. After realizing I could etch any image I wanted, I immediately pivoted to doing that, and unfortunately, the circuit board idea was abandoned. Essentially, from a cyberpunk entrance point, I discovered a very old-school printing technique. However, instead of using my etched metal to create prints on paper, I positioned them directly on the wall. When I first began, the material used to resist the acid was actually black nail polish. The nail polish was very natural for me at the time, as it was a staple in my wardrobe and already lying around. I feel like all the materials I work with, from leather jackets to black nail polish, exist inside my rigid material language. I would individually make dots with the nail polish brush. There are only two of these works in existence. At this time, I was spending hours painting dots with nail polish on stainless steel and telling all my studio mates I had to clock in for my shifts at the dot factory. It felt very absurd and was „Kusama Coded“ somehow.
Photo: Niels Lucke
I settled on the process I use now, which involves screen-printing my resist material onto the stainless steel and then giving it an acid bath. Next, I safely remove the acid and the resist material before building a frame. Lately, I’ve become very interested in rivets. While I am a firm believer in form over function, I am quite happy to have found something that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
There is something about working with acid that is very freeing for me. Leaks and small mistakes become my favorite moments in the work. Sometimes people will ask me if I am the one who actually produces my work. This question is, of course, equal parts insulting and flattering. That’s why I like to include aspects where, upon closer inspection, you can see the artist’s hand and not something that feels like it could be mass-produced. Little leaks or marks from where something was hand-sawed all become part of the work.
Photo: Niels Lucke
The figures appearing in your etchings carry strong political connotations. Can you give us some examples?
Most of my work is around misinformation, disinformation, and media literacy. There has been a consistent flow in the past couple of years. I started with conspiracy theories, in particular, simulation theory. Next, I focused on a term I coined, “Techno Holistic Medicine”, which explores how holistic and spiritual wellness is mediated through technology. A prevalent example would be TikTok tarot readers, although it unfortunately goes much, much deeper. Later, after reading Svetlana Boym’s The Future of Nostalgia, I wanted to find how nostalgia lends itself to masking present atrocities. And this was how the XXX series began. My most recent series, Lonesome Town, explores how gun culture radicalizes young white men in the USA.
Photo: Niels Lucke
The next work I have planned will track the overlaps in ideology between those who believe in the rapture and those who believe in accelerationist theory. I don’t believe or support either, but I find it interesting how both focus on a utopian future while abandoning the idea of making the present better.
Since my work deals with media literacy, I have struggled to present a cultural critique that can be misinterpreted as a promotion of something I am against. This experience has been very strange for me and highlights this need for media literacy in an even greater way. I do have a sensitivity for the individuals whose experiences become the subject of my work. In the case of conspiracy theories and people looking into holistic medicine just to fall victim to online grifters, I would never simply mock them or call them dumb. It is clear that in a world full of complexity, simple answers and solutions are alluring. And instead of ostracizing these individuals, I want to gently show the system they are in.
Lonesome Town Acid, 2025. Acid etching on stainless steel, 100 × 200 cm. Courtesy of the artist
There is a sense of eroticism in your work; are we right, and why is it important to you?
I can’t decide if, for some reason, I am very naive or perhaps instead very overexposed to erotic imagery, because I often forget that the work I make is very much erotic. I get a lot of my stainless steel from a guy I found on eBay who collects off-cuts from construction sites. One time, he asked to see what I was working on, and when I showed him works from the XXX series featuring lingerie models, he said, “Schön,” with a nod and a smile.
XXX GIRL, 2025, Stainless steel acid etching, 92 x 92 cm. Courtesy of the artist
In the XXX series, where I borrow images from billboards and lingerie packaging, the source material is, of course, advertising material for a sex shop. However, I collect these images as symbols to tell a different story. The sex shop called LSD is, for many Berliners, an iconic symbol; yet within the private video rooms, the architecture of the space becomes a setting for human trafficking and other human rights violations. The billboard images of lingerie models from the 2000s are what people remember and feel nostalgic about, completely detached from the activities taking place on the ground floor.
XXX lingerie box girl girl, 2025, Stainless steel acid etching, 30 x 50 cm. Courtesy of the artist
In the case of Lonesome Town, I would say that I was more in control of the eroticism. In the current culture of male loneliness, some aspects are both homoerotic and homophobic. I remember that when I was directing the video shoot, it was important to me that none of the actors touched each other. The only actions were to take place with the guns.
During my time at Universität der Künste Berlin, I studied under Monica Bonvicini, who, since the early 2000s, has included fetish objects in her work to question both power and the architecture of spaces. I find eroticism and sexuality to be a common lens through which we can explore dynamics of power. For good reason, questions of space, bodies, and sexuality are inseparable in how power operates.
Where can we see your work next?
I have a few exhibitions planned during Berlin Art Week. Currently, I have a video work on view at the Fluxus Museum in Paros, Greece, as part of an exhibition featuring the winners of the museum’s experimental video prize.
Photo: Niels Lucke
Can you give our readers a few recommendations for places to visit in Berlin?
My long-time favorites are Schinkel Pavillon, KW, and Hamburger Bahnhof. However, I am finding this an exciting moment in Berlin nightlife, where visual art and performance are becoming more valued. This past December, I had a solo exhibition at Studio 1111 with the party collective Endless Clubbing. In my opinion, they are doing a cool job of combining visual arts, performance, concerts, pole, and nightlife into a single experience.
Bailey Keogh – www.baileykeogh.com, www.instagram.com/baileykeogh/
Based in Berlin, Bailey Keogh studied Fine Arts at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK Berlin) under Monica Bonvicini. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Museum für Fotografie (Berlin), Art Basel Miami, the Torrance Art Museum (California), the Alicante Museum of Contemporary Art (Spain), the Center for Contemporary and Experimental Art (Armenia), the Fluxus Museum (Greece), and Transmediale/CTM.