That’s just what I said! – Ian McKeever 13 October 2019

So, following a recommendation from Richard Heys, who I met at The Other At Fair, I looked up some online video interviews with Ian McKeever.  This recommendation has proved to be an invaluable gift. McKeever’s paintings, and the way he talks about his practice resonates deeply with some of the very embryonic ideas in my own work.

In one particularly interesting interview, he talks about aiming to set up a sense of space where the picture doesn’t go into and beyond the picture plane, as with traditional perspective, but pulses in and out from the canvas.  He uses raw canvas, sometimes painting on the reverse so that paint bleeds through, helping to create a loose amorphous space.

I’m also reading Ian McKeever: Paintings, (Allthorpe-Guyton, et al. 2009).  In it, Catherine Lampert refers to McKeever having a copy of Paul Evdikimov’s ‘The Art of the Icon: a theology of beauty’ in which he’s highlighted a couple of passages: ‘matter is very much alive, but it is immobilized so to speak, in contemplative quietness, so as to listen closely to the revelations’, and ‘sculpture moulds nudity and beautiful forms in three dimensions.  In contrast to two-dimensional painting, it cannot as easily express the other dimension, that is, the dimension of transcendence, mystery and infinity.’

Blimey!… Here’s what I wrote in the proposal for my final major project on my foundation course last year: –

    “I’m particularly interested in how a 2D image can draw a viewer into a place that has a virtually infinite sense of space and depth, whilst a 3D sculpture explores space, but also defines, and is defined by, a very specific area of space.  A 3D form inhabits the same space and time that we do and […] makes us aware of our physical reality. A 2D surface, on the other hand, […] invites us into an ‘imaginary’ world. The form of a piece seems to lend itself well to expressing Identity […] surface seems ideal […] to express Mystery.”

In this monograph, Allthorpe-Guyton (2009) describes how McKeever gave up all other media to commit to a life of painting in order to get at this otherness… Well, this has made me think.  To some extent I’ve been coming towards this a bit myself myself. I’ve always been drawn to making sculpture and feel comfortable expressing myself this way. However, I have a nagging sense that there could be more to a painting; it can take you somewhere that sculpture can’t… I feel quite comfortable working with my hands to manipulate materials and make forms whilst I feel very exposed and incompetent in making paintings.  It strikes me that this in itself is probably a good enough reason to focus on painting, for a bit at least; – to explore what it is that engenders this sense of exposure and incompetence. 

Unfortunately, this also plays into the hands of another personal insecurity around being a ‘Jack of all trades and master of none’.  I admire people who’ve chosen a particular path, stuck with it and developed deeply, but this doesn’t seem to suit my disposition. I think perhaps what I need to focus on is my interests and what I want to express and try to become a master of that rather than any particular medium.  Food for thought. 

I’ve been working with the idea that I can use the surface of a sculpture to make a painting on; combining the best of both worlds.  For now though, I want to develop some competence in painting, particularly looking at how to develop a sense of depth and complexity whilst also being a bit more loose and expressive.  The first thing I’ve started working on in the studio is a purely black and white painting. Starting with a black ground I want to experiment with building up layers of white, somewhat amorphous forms, to see if this can generate a sense of space and light coming forward.

Allthorpe-Guyton, Marjorie, et al. (2009). Ian McKeever: Paintings. London. Lund Humphries.