A sort of celestial Mark Rothko, the Indianapolis artist Johnny McKee, who curates for and has a studio in the Harrison Center, is a mysterious kind of man. Well known throughout the city, and a longtime member of its creative community, McKee has kept quite a bit of privacy behind his bushy beard. Yet recently, I had the opportunity to step into the art gallery of Marian University with him to view his latest exhibition, “Between Moments of Clarity,” and in doing so, get a glimpse into the inner workings of the mind of Indiana’s most enigmatic artist.
The remnants of his highly successful January show “Beafterfore,” of which over half of his pieces were sold, this display makes for a perfect excerpt of both McKee’s works and his personal philosophy. Along with his depictions of clouds and stars for which he is most well known, “Between Moments of Clarity” features abstract expressionist pieces created by such diverse means as carving with a screw to more common practices such as drip painting. These experimental works of art, from the immensely intellectual to the highly humorous, ultimately work to showcase a man not afraid of letting his subconscious be seen.
Even something as seemingly simple as his smaller circular star pieces has great depth, with McKee stating that after his mother passed away in 2008 he “really began to meditate, to wonder, to question, what happens to us, what happened to her, what happens in general”. It was this line of questioning about the universe, humanity, and mortality, that eventually saw the dots appear in his work as a means by which to engage in a therapeutic and contemplative practice. This quickly developed into the existential works he creates today, with him telling me that he enjoys the “inherent patterns that come from not making a pattern”.
It is this perfectly paradoxical chaotic order that sees so many find his pieces to be breathtaking to the fullest extent of the word, with entire groups of people looking into them for minutes at a time. He, however, notes that this is not intentional, and that he is simply creating, that it’s the viewers’ job to interpret his pieces. Even still, he said that he “appreciates the fact that people can sit and stare and have their own experiences” as he finds such to be a somewhat hard thing to get across in art at times.
Perhaps most perplexing to his audience is the aforementioned abstract expressionist pieces. This, however, he handles with care, regarding his work as an evolution of the pieces created by famed artist and Herron School of Art and Design graduate, Lois Main Templeton who he called a “grandmother of abstract art here in Indianapolis”. Before she passed away in 2018, she was a mentor to McKee and many others, and her mark making, drip painting, and tendency to write unidentifiable words upon her canvases can all be seen in particular works made by McKee. In dealing with his more free form pieces, he also takes up quite a tongue-in- cheek attitude. With his piece below, entitled “Your Kid could Paint this” being a prime example of his understanding of both current art trends, and the perception of the art world from the outside. Ultimately, such humor lends an accessibility to his works, flipping the stereotype of the confusing abstract piece upon its head in an act of subversive simplicity. Speaking over this, he told me that it all stems back to when he was at the Herron School of Art. It was then, at his graduation in 1997, that he heard world renowned artist Vija Celmins state that “this art thing really means nothing”. It’s a moment that has stuck with him over the years, and further highlights another perfect paradox of his work, that he engages in both the conveyance of the sublime whilst not losing sight of the silly and simple.
This balance of both the serious and the straightforward,…
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