William McKeown

William McKeown made paintings, drawings, prints and installations that captured the openness and life-enhancing power of nature. Guided by a belief in the primacy of feeling, his paintings took on the guise of objective minimalism and the monochrome, but presented us with so much more: nature as something real, tangible, all around us, to be touched and felt. Each painting is slightly off-square, undermining the perfection of geometry, and scaled roughly to the size of the human chest, as if mirroring the capacity of our lungs to breathe in air.

William McKeown (1962 - 2011)
Hope Drawing, circa 2003
watercolour on paper
57 x 50.5 cm


Images courtesy of the William McKeown Estate and Kerlin Gallery

Survey

  • The Dayroom, 2004-2010 (Recreated 2012)

    wood, paint, electrics, oil on linen, colouring pencil on paper
    Collection of Dallas Museum of Art

  • The Seagulls, 2008

    oil on linen
    43 x 43 cm / 16.9 x 16.9 in   

  • Open Drawing - Primrose, ND

    colouring pencil on paper
    28 x 25 cm / 11 x 9.8 in

  • Untitled, 2008

    oil on linen
    45 x 45.5 cm / 17.7 x 17.9 in 

Biography

William McKeown’s work has been exhibited at the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, NY; The Drawing Centre, New York; BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels; Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh and National Gallery of Ireland. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Dallas Museum of Art; LOEWE Design District Store, Miami; Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh; mima, Middlesbrough; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin; Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin; Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore and Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast. In 2005, he represented Northern Ireland in the 51st Venice Biennale.