William McKeown made paintings, drawings, prints and installations that captured the openness and life-enhancing power of nature. Many of his paintings are scaled roughly to the size of the human chest, as if mirroring the capacity of our lungs to breathe in air. Sometimes presented in ‘room installations’, wooden structures with wallpaper, windows and artificial light that mimic a clinical setting, his works act as windows out onto the world – an escape from the repression and mundanity of everyday life and into the lightness and expansiveness of the sky, using subtle gradations of tone to create moments of exquisite beauty and bliss.
William McKeown (b.1962, Tyrone, Northern Ireland – d. 2011, Edinburgh, Scotland) made paintings, drawings, prints and installations that captured the openness and transcendent power of nature. 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. In 2022, McKeown was the subject of the inaugural exhibition at the Richard Rogers Gallery, Château La Coste, curated by Jonathan Anderson. He has also had 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.
McKeown’s work is held in major public and private collections worldwide including Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, USA; The Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, Ireland; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; The Ulster Museum, Belfast, Northern Ireland; Arts Council England, UK; Arts Council Ireland, Ireland; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland and Château La Coste, Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade, France.
