Collection: Naomi McKean

@naomiiiiam

Naomi McKean (born 1969), is based in Sydney. McKean’s “vertical landscapes” explore the directional energy of linear spatial relationships and colour fields, and are underlined with emotion, experience and memory.

Through the reduction of urban landscape and form to its essence, McKean finds truth and clarity in minimal abstraction and is motivated by vivid colours and bold clean lines. She primarily works with acrylic paint on canvas, enjoying the everyday aesthetic and inherent artificiality of the medium.

Her materials, acrylic paint and masking tape, are utilitarian, and pay tribute to the influence of Barnett Newman and the lineage of the hard edge abstraction movement of the 1960s. Like Newman, the hand’s mark is integral to her work in order to create a tension between the elements of chance and the artifice of the abstracted landscape.

A feature of her paintings is that they are ‘modular’, and can be rearranged or placed horizontally by the viewer, incorporating the Bauhaus principle of combining aesthetics and functionality for modern living. McKean’s commitment to experimentation and innovation creates arresting colour field paintings.

Her compositions, underpinned by a sophisticated balance of line and colour, create a pleasing rhythm as the eye navigates the painting.