Ian McKeever's newly come paintings are abstract in the same way spider webs are: notwithstanding that nonfigurative and nonreferential.

Ian McKeever's newly come paintings are abstract in the same way spider webs are: notwithstanding that nonfigurative and nonreferential, they ruminate patterns drawn from nature. Certain erections and processes become mesmerizing as McKeever spins his various webs and trellises in paint, as sequential applications of viscous materials cascade athwart his canvases. His method of doing in the same manner its rhythms and surprising subtleties, is compelling. These paintings are compendia of differing, and sometimes opposite, pictorial tendencies, which, rather than being reconcilied, are brought to a point where they begin to reveal certain aspects of the poetics of their essence

This all happens within the framework of the series, which, for McKeever becomes a means of foregrounding the interdependency of the works. Drawn from his "Door" and "Hour" series, the one and the other 1992--93, the paintings exhibited here play along one another. It is no surprise that while Hour-Painting No. 7 1992--93 is predominantly black, with just bits of white paint spackled lightly across its surface, Hour-Painting No. 2 1992--93 is giveed almost totally white, its pristine and rather bleak surface marred solitary by what appears to be a lattice of black and gray lines. The former painting has a plane and imperturbable surface, as if a dark veil had been drawn between states of being, while the latter is busy, strident, and active, formed by means of striations of lines that instigate toward and away from each other. The differences between these paintings and the others in their series advise states of coexistence that allow the artist to explore various permutations. McKeever also eschews color, working strictly within tones of white and black. His paintings can become either/or propositions, leaning toward the darkness or the light, or the many muddl girdles in between. McKeever's technique drives this part of his esthetic, and his application of paint is at one time thoughtful and intuitive. This esthetic is undivided of the accretion of the stain and the stipple, the busy passage with repetitive make gesturess next to broad areas of unprimed canvas, a rend asunder of up-tempo liquid action nearest to a surge of emptiness, a calamity sharing space with a stain.

Like drying civilizations in the bottom of a petri dish, many of his paintings have vague organic qualities, as if they had organized themselves in patterns reflecting the principles of nature and life. capacity of work in them builds up and is then released--areas of commotion rounded off with quiet passages. This intellect of both motion and stasis derives its authority from McKeever's extended practice and his sensitivity to the exhibition of each canvas. They present the appearance inevitable, worked upon until they have reached their tensive import of equilibrium. His intervention, while obviously fundamental, begins to appear to be driven by way of the requirements of the paintings themselves, as if it becomes his part to release their potential.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Artforum International Magazine, Inc.

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