Ian McKeever RA (born 1946) is a contemporary British artist whose work explores landscapes and our relationship with space, combining photography and painting in powerful abstract compositions.
I was taught by Ian during my Master's degree—the sweetest, most brilliant painter, the best artist of all time.
His work explores landscapes and our relationship with them, how we see space and the land around us. Ian was a landscape artist in the 80s, and his abstract work grew from that deep connection to place. What makes his work so powerful is the way he combines different ways of seeing—photographic fragments with painted gestures, memory with immediacy.
Paint can create a new space and landscape for the viewer to get lost in. The internal spaces and external spaces Ian creates are like experiencing a landscape without depicting a specific scene—you feel the place without it being tied to one particular view. This is something I strive for in my own work: that sense of being in a landscape, of inhabiting its atmosphere and light, without it being a literal depiction.
What I learned from Ian—both from his paintings and his teaching—was about honesty in mark-making, about trusting your response to landscape and translating it without overthinking. He gave me permission to work large, to be bold, to let the painting lead. His influence on my work is profound and ongoing.
MY FAVOURITE PIECE
Lapland Painting: Crossing (1986)
Medium: Oil and photograph on canvas
Artwork dimensions: 250 x 430cm
