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BRIAN McKAY : New Works : Galerie Düsseldorf : 14 October - 11 Novemebr 2007
  • Born in Meckering Western Australia in 1926, Brian McKay has been the subject of a major survey exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1988 and at The Holmes à Court Gallery in 2004. In 1990 he was awarded the Australia Council Emeritus Award and in 1991 the Order of Australia Medal for services to Contemporary Art. His work is held in numerous public and private collections throughout Australia.

  • Aluminium and some Stainless Steel as a working support is used in these Brian McKay works.
    The surfaces are etched / distressed using a high tensile steel scriber and various grades of emery cloth, steel wool and polishes.
    In some of the works, artist's oils are rubbed into the etch or Automotive enamel is used to produce lines or areas of colour.
    Many works have no introduced colour at all relying instead on ambient light and colour, These colours are subsequently absorbed into the surfaces and re-introduced to the viewer as refracted/reflected colour.
  • Many of the works display ambient colour but have no actual applied colour. In general, daylight tends to produce a blue tinge on the refractive / reflective surfaces and in incandescent light a yellow glow. In low light conditions these works emit a cooler white glow often changing negative space into positive and vice versa. Where colour has been added, artist's oils or automotive enamels have been used.
    Much of this is achieved as Brian 'directionally' works the surface of the aluminium creating different refraction possibilities.
    Viewed from different angles the works change in appearance from positive to negative, from complete to in-part and from light to dark to light again.

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THE WEST AUSTRALIAN TODAY - 26/10/2007
VISUAL ARTS
Ric Spencer


New work with
a timeless edge


There's something about Brian McKay's work that resonates long after you've seen it and this to me testifies to its timelessness.
McKay's New Work at Galerie Dusseldorf delves into the archetypical symbol, augmenting circles, pyramids and squares, but in New Work the archetype encounters a very personal language that has been developed and then accomplished over time.
I really enjoy the slickness of McKay's oil on aluminium paintings; they glean well the feeling of oil as it sits on top of a more impermeable surface. Or should I say pseudo-slickness, because when you get up close there is distinct hand-craftedness to the works, confusing the initial summation that they had been produced by machinery.
This confusion is an important binary that McKay is setting up, to be fooled into thinking these aluminium works are products of industry is pivotal to their viewing. Fooled is too strong a word, seduced maybe. And seduced you are because the slickness pulls you in and then the obvious hand-process alludes nicely to the idea that beyond all industry, beyond all scope of mass production, as Duchamp, Marx and others have suggested, is the act of production itself. This tension between production and its purpose and between the joy of making and its purpose lies at the heart of McKay's work.
At times, it's a little difficult to work out whether McKay is an avid fan of the Industrial Revolution or perhaps a follower of the Morris craft movement. This ambiguity in his work, between polished surface and scratchy line work, allows for some beautiful dancing surfaces.
His Triptych - Uno Dos Tres is a classic example. The slim vertical panels resonate with a depth that shifts as you move back and forth in front of them. Indeed, it contracts and expands, breathing an alternating weight and lightness that exudes a very physical response. On top of McKay's continual critique of production methods is a purposeful and methodological development of painting as a process. This has led to a unique understanding of the mechanics of art-making and a very individual and creative language.

Brian McKay: New Works is at Galerie Dusseldorf, Mosman Park, until November 11