Slowing down in a world where “everything is changing all the time” is of the essence to McKeever, who never takes credit for finishing his paintings: “They finish themselves”, he says. A painting can easily sit for a couple of months to a year in the studio before it is once again taken out and recommenced. This sense of timeless flow, McKeever feels, seems to free the paintings from any specific moment or period in time.

Leaving room for the mystery to grow on the viewer by drawing them in only to push them back out again is also at the core of McKeever’s beautiful and suggestive paintings. The sense of mystery is what forms the attraction, and the obvious is of little interest, as he says: “I think there are enough tables and chairs and people in the world already, I don’t see why we all have to paint them as well.”

Ian McKeever (b.1946) is a British artist based in Dorset, England. He is a Visiting Professor in Painting at the Faculty of Art and Architecture at the University of Brighton. Between 2006-2011 he was Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy School of Arts, London. Among his solo exhibitions are ‘Hours of Darkness and Hours of Light’ and ‘Twelve-Standing and Three’.

Ian McKeever was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg at Horsens Art Museum, Denmark in 2014.

Camera: Ole Udengaard
Edited by Kasper Bech Dyg
Produced by Kasper Bech Dyg
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2014

Supported by Nordea-fonden