JOHN MCKEE, Apr 1-23, 2005, Lando Gallery, Edmonton

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"St. Paul Region Road to the Lake"

John McKee, "St. Paul Region Road to the Lake," 2004, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 48".

JOHN MCKEE

ALBERTA: Apr 1-23, 2005, Lando Gallery, Edmonton

By Lee Bale

John McKee, one of Canada’s senior impressionist painters, helped establish the genre of the large-scale western landscape. He is experiencing a fresh wave of discovery by a seasoned generation of art buyers newly enchanted by landscape, says Brent Leubke of Lando Gallery in Edmonton. McKee’s new work is indeed fresh and solid. This boy from St. Paul, Alberta, claimed his place as the painter of the classic prairie road decades ago. An encounter with one of his rural highway canvases is unforgettable for those who drive these isolated roads. McKee is an alchemist who transforms paint into black ice over glittering asphalt under a northern winter sky. These pictures, created from the veiled accretions of acrylic gel and wax, are hauntingly precise in their ability to define the moment and, as a whole, encompass a significant record of West-ern Canada’s landmarks. As McKee has lived, worked, taught and moved across this vast region he has enshrined the vistas that define it: golden prairie, foothill scrub, glaciated mountain, deep forest and coastal panorama.

Represented by: Lando Gallery, Edmonton; McKee Art Studio, Canyon, BC