Ian McKeever paintings

I came across Ian McKeever's paintings at the library and was drawn to the layers of colour and abstract shapes in them, reminiscent of natural forms. Some paintings weaving like Mondrian's trees, other earlier pieces similar to Eric Aho's abstract glacial paintings.

McKeever speaks of his experience with colour and how it can assume another state, for "it is as if colour needed suggestion of transparency in order to hold a body." (Ian McKeever Paintings, 2009) I find that as well, in working with colour, that there is something about transparency or light that makes it more alive. I have tried flat paintings with one colour but they are too monotonous, as if they're not yet alive.

It's interesting how he works in series, and that through the process of working he comes to know what the paintings want to say and what they are about. 

 

I was also impressed by the naturally occurring forms and the process he used in achieving these. In the Assembly series he uses layers of colour that move through the composition as if grown organically from within.