Contemporary abstract artist Gina Keatley has announced Motto Motto, a new five-painting acrylic-on-canvas series developed between New York City and Akō, Japan. The series arrives as Keatley completes the ownership transition of Bushwick Gallery and expands Salt Road Studio, an artist-led platform in Akō focused on contemporary art, publishing, international exchange and future residency programming.
The series takes its name from the Japanese word motto, meaning “more.” Repeated as motto motto, the phrase becomes both an instruction and a rhythm: a commitment to continue beyond the moment when a painting first appears resolved. The five works—More Depth, More Motion, More Expanse, More Resonance and More Cadence—each measure 48 by 36 inches. Across blush, cream, sand, smoke and pale earth tones, Keatley layers acrylic, scrapes, veils, interrupts and rebuilds the surface. Faint flashes of mandarin orange, introduced through her raindrop technique, bring energy to the quieter palette while darker marks and fragments remain visible beneath.
“Motto Motto is about pushing past the first point where a painting feels finished,” Keatley says. “It is about taking more from the process. More time, more movement, more pressure, more room to see what the work can become.”
Rather than illustrating Japan, the series treats movement between New York and Akō as a working condition. Distance, atmosphere and cultural experience enter the paintings through process instead of literal imagery. Accumulation, revision and return become the shared structure connecting the five canvases.
That geographic shift is also institutional. After founding and directing Bushwick Gallery in Brooklyn, Keatley is completing the gallery’s ownership transition while turning greater attention toward Salt Road Studio. The Akō-based initiative connects her New York practice with the Seto Inland Sea region and is being developed to support contemporary art, artist-led publishing, international exchange and future residency programming.
The result is a body of work that feels weathered and newly made at once: soft in palette, yet insistent in presence. Each painting carries its own cadence while remaining part of a shared visual language built through touch, interruption and persistence.
Motto Motto marks a continued refinement of Keatley’s abstract practice and a transition toward a broader international framework for her work. The series and press images can be viewed at https://untamedmoderns.com/gina-keatley-motto-motto-series/. Untamed Moderns is an independent contemporary art platform presenting Keatley’s work and projects. Based in New York with a growing connection to Akō, Japan, it publishes new bodies of work and artist-led initiatives, including Salt Road Studio. More information is available at https://untamedmoderns.com.
For the art market, the announcement signals Keatley’s deepening engagement with international exchange at a time when artists increasingly build transnational practices. Her dual focus on painting and institutional development—through Salt Road Studio and the Bushwick Gallery transition—positions her as both creator and facilitator, a model that could influence how artists structure careers across borders. Collectors and institutions attuned to abstract work with material and conceptual rigor may find in Motto Motto a timely example of process-driven art shaped by place and movement.
