Naomi McKean

Naomi McKean is a recent graduate of a Bachelor of Fine Arts program at the National Art School, Sydney, and a recipient of the Harvey Galleries Award for the National Art School Graduates’ Exhibition. Her research has focused on painting and landscape drawing, and her work is rooted in an intuitive and immediate connection to her surrounding environment.

McKean’s drive to become a professional artist was greatly influenced by her background in the communications industry and her passion for travel and literature. She speaks Italian and French, and her previous career as a flight attendant, coupled with extensive travel throughout both countries, have significantly influenced her work.

McKean envisions her artistic journey as a continuous thread, woven into the rich tapestry of Australian art. Her work is a reflection of the past, an ode to the present, and a poised contribution to the ever-evolving narrative of our artistic landscape.

Artist Statement:

Naomi McKean, born 1969, is an Australian painter who resides in Gadigal Land, Sydney. McKean focuses on exploring “vertical landscapes” to illustrate the directional energy of linear spatial relationships and colour fields, underlined with emotion, experience and memory.

Through Hard Edge Abstraction and Colour Field painting, McKean is focused on creating bold, colourful ‘vertical landscapes,’ that explore spatial contrasts and relationships as they reflect her modern urban surroundings.

McKean’s work is informed by the hard abstraction movement of the 60s, and the Kustom Kar Kulture of the hot-rod pinstripers in Tom Wolfe’s 1963 essay, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby. Integral to her work is the hand’s mark and the dynamic contrast between the measured precision of line and the element of chance.

McKean primarily works with acrylic paint on canvas, enjoying the everyday aesthetic and inherent artificiality of the medium. Her compositions are underpinned by a sophisticated balance of line and colour, creating a pleasing rhythm as the eye navigates the painting.

A feature of her paintings is that they are ‘modular’, and can be rearranged or placed horizontally by the viewer. This concept incorporates the Bauhaus principle of combining aesthetics and functionality to address the realities of modern living.