William McKeown’s art was driven by a lifelong pursuit of openness and a belief in the primacy of feeling. His paintings act like windows into the expansiveness beyond, offering liberation from constraint, or quite simply a breath of air, and a point of connection with the world. In the thirteen years since his untimely passing, the artist’s work has continued to resonate with new audiences worldwide, and the underlying quest of his work – for hope, freedom, connection, happiness, dancing, and oneness with nature – remains as vital as ever.

This presentation at Place des Vosges brings together a selection of McKeown’s oil paintings and works on paper. Both use subtle gradations of tone to create moments of exquisite beauty, heightened by a tension between freedom and containment. They range from a clear sky blue through the subtle gradients of twilight into bolder, more contrastive works and finally into more sombre tones of grey and black. These late paintings often feature painted borders that appear irregular, broken, or perhaps permeable or ‘open’. At times, the perimeter encloses only three sides – “a post-and-lintel framing of a luminous field beyond”, suggests critic and lecturer Caoimhín Mac Giolla Léith in a recently published artist monograph.

For further information, including visiting hours, visit place-des-vosges.com.

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