Title

Brian McKay

Author

Gray, Anne

Publication date

2000

Type

Biography

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Brian McKay

McKay, Brian (b. Meckering, Western Australia, 18 March 1926). Australian painter and printmaker. In his formative years he worked as a graphic designer in Perth, which provided him with a solid technical training. He moved to London in the 1960s where he worked as a at a screen printing factory. He was inspired by the abstract tradition of Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Joseph Albers. When he first saw their work the scale of it had an immediate and liberating effect on him and he embarked on a series of large experimental pieces using a combination of pure colour and built-up pigment. But he believes that art must relate to society, be of use in the community, and to this end has made political posters and Trade Union banners.

McKay has been consistently experimental in his approach to making art, in his exploration of surface textures, the mystery of lettering and the interplay of colour. He frequently uses text as metaphor. He constructs austere images with meticulously crafted surfaces, and creates iconic forms out of popular imagery and found objects. The work is abstract in the Greek or medieval sense of the word in so far as it contains general and inherent aspects of phenomenon and not its individual or accidental aspects.

He has made a significant contribution to the visual arts in Western Australia through his art practice and through his involvement with alternative arts organisations such as Praxis, Media Space and his key role in the creation of Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.

In more recent years, McKay’s best-known pieces have been large public murals, and three-dimensional work featuring highly polished aluminium. These which consist of panels that are surface marked and joined together to create vibrant designs and in some instance optical illusion.

McKay's work is represented in main Australian public collections.

ref: Hendrik Kolenberg, ‘Printmaking of Painting: Brian McKay’s Recent Work’, Art and Australia, vol.18, no.4, 1981, pp. 345-8; Helen Topliss, The work of Brian McKay, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, 1988; Luceille Hanley, Brian McKay: Painter, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1991.

Anne Gray, 2000