"Prairie Landscape" Oil Painting by Brian McKay

This oil paint offers an infinite view on a red horizon that could remind what ones would find in a prairie at the end of the day. The warm color contrast between the bottom of the painting and the top evokes to a certain extent a sense of birth and death, of creation and destruction. Brian McKay was born in Meckering in 1926, and grew up in Northam Western Australia. He was chosen to represent Australia as a child artist in the 1938 New York World’s Fair and subsequently he decided at the age of eleven, he wished to become an artist. To this end he successfully achieved his dreams and aspirations although interrupted by WWII. In 1961 he was invited to join the 'Perth Group' with artists Guy Grey Smith, Robert Juniper and Tom Gibbons and in 1964, McKay took his family and went to live and work in Greece, travelling on to London in 1966 where he continued his studio practice for some ten years, creating artworks many of which were sent back to Australia for exhibition. He returned to Perth in 1975, joining the 'Praxis' group and in 1981 he became part of the legendary 'Media Space' Group. Dedicated to improving the state of the arts in WA he played a major role in the formation of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. He was Chair of the PICA Trust from 1985 – 1988. In 1982 The Art Gallery of WA held a major survey of his work. Much of Brian's time over the past two decades was devoted to teaching painting and printmaking at Perth Central TAFE, whilst continuing a constant exhibition schedule at Galerie Düsseldorf and creating iconic major public artworks. In particular the gigantic wall works in the foyer of the Central Park building in Perth CBD, the sculpture of the Penrose Impossible Triangle at a major traffic intersection in East Perth, a large mural for the ABC, and an effervescent ceiling work for the New Maritime Museum in Fremantle. McKay’s work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, The Art Gallery of Western Australia, Bunbury Regional Gallery, The Holmes á Court Collection, UWA, Curtin University of Technology, Edith Cowan University, Fremantle Arts Centre, Royal Perth Hospital, Charles Gairdner Hospital and many private collections across Australia.

REFERENCE NUMBER: LU654310534062
PERIOD: Late 20th Century
CONDITION: Excellent
MEASUREMENTS: Height: 48" Width: 48" Depth: 1.5"
COUNT: 1
MATERIAL: Oil