Art News

William McKeown, who had a highly refined use of colour, died in Edinburgh

DUBLIN.- It is with a profound sense of sadness and loss that we report the death of William McKeown. Born in Tyrone, 1962 William died at home in Edinburgh on Tuesday, October 25, 2011. “There are two types of art – open and closed. All closed art is negative and anti life. Art which is open accepts without judgement, is expanding, positive, and life enhancing.” – (William McKeown, 2002) In the 16 years since he first exhibited work at the Kerlin Gallery, William McKeown developed a body of work that has had a radical and fundamental effect on our understanding of the age-old relationship of art to nature. The foundation of McKeown’s work and life was his belief in the primacy of feeling. His paintings took on the guise of objective minimalism and the monochrome but presented us with so much more; nature as something real, tangible, all around us, to be touched and felt. Through very subtle gradation