By Hollie Harris
RobRoy McKeown is fixated on colour. Far from his home near Belfast in Northern Ireland, this artist gathers inspiration from the natural beauty of his surroundings to create texture, marks and line which evoke emotion.
Practicing art seriously in Northern Ireland in the mid ’80s, where he began his formal training, seems like a world away for this artist, who now resides in our tranquil Hinterland.
Pursuing his lifelong passion for painting, nestled amongst 50 hectares of rainforest and the Noosa Trail, Rob now spends time in a home built from trees on the block.
“The home was built by my wife Jo, her first husband, and her talented sons,” Rob said.
“My studio is a rustic cottage. Living in the middle of a rainforest, I feel very lucky and blessed. Being surrounded by nature – it’s not hard to be inspired by it,” he said.
As one of the artists opening up his studio for the Noosa Open Studios art trail this weekend, Rob is looking forward to sharing his journey and his art work with the public.
“I very much enjoy the experience of meeting people and having the opportunity to talk with them about my work and to get feedback from the general public. This is not always possible when an artist shows their work in an exhibition,” Rob said.
RobRoy – his first and middle name – was named after his grandfather, Rob and after his Godfather, Roy. With strong connections to his heritage, Rob misses home yet feels blessed to now call Australia home.
“Ireland is a beautiful place and I miss it and my family dearly. For me growing up in my formative teenage years in Northern Ireland in ‘the eighties’ it was like a ‘nuthouse’ with the country having sustained 30 years of troubles.
“The Irish are some of the funniest people in the world but I couldn’t stand the religious bigotry that went on as well as the constant violence,” Rob said.
Working in Juvenile Detention Centres and adult prisons both here and in Ireland, Rob learned to integrate his creative skills into his work to help others.
While in one his roles at Port Phillip Prison, Melbourne, a student who showed Rob how to throw a clay pot properly was an underworld figure who featured on television’s ‘Underbelly’ series.
“The Adult Prison Art Classes were some of my best teaching experiences,” Rob said.
“I worked with an extensive range of A category class prisoners from murderers, rapists, armed robbers to corporate crime. The stories that they shared were really quite incredible.
“One of my success stories in prison was to encourage an armed robber to enrol in a Diploma of Art,” Rob said.
Some 19 years ago, Rob began work as an art teacher for ‘at risk’ disadvantaged/disassociated young people, mainly young people who fell out of the mainstream school system. Tapping into each young person’s strengths was the key to helping guide them down a path that didn’t contain crime, police and the inevitable incarceration.
“I have had a wealth of experience of working with them in various institutions whether in prisons, schools, outdoor education settings, community and welfare.
“It can be a very long slow process, where you don’t always see the results of your work,” he said.
One of the young boys Rob worked with in Melbourne in 1996 had been excluded from all schools by age 13. With poor numeracy and literacy skills Rob saw the potential this boy had with art and encouraged his eye for composing beautiful, colourful images.
“Ten years later when I was visiting Melbourne, a young man skated past, stopped and thanked me for supporting him all those years ago when nobody else would as they simply thought of him as a failure,” Rob said.
“He said he was now working as a set builder in the Princess Theatre in Melbourne.”
Rob still works with young people who need a 24/7 youth worker, helping with everyday life skills, teaching them emotional regulation skills when they have been triggered by past traumatic events.
The aim over time is to get the young people back into secure home-based placement or into semi-independent living with some support and an ultimate goal of independent living.
Rob combines his two passions when he can; working with young people on art pieces, photography, outdoor pursuits and also music.
After learning the guitar when working with some students in 1996, Rob’s pursuit of music had begun. A bit of a Jack of all trades and master of, well, all of them, Rob continued to learn guitar, then the ukulele and most recently, the mandolin.
As part of Jazz band “Me and My Chauffeur”, alongside jazz banjo player John Withers from Cooroibah and Rob’s wife as the lead singer, Rob recently played at the Nambour Winter Jazz Festival with Galapagos Duck.
“We play beautiful, obscure, forgotten melodies from the past and give them a jazz-type interpretation with beautiful vocals from my wife. One tune that we play “Mississippi Rag,” was composed in 1886.
“I absolutely love playing this music and playing in the band. I think the enthusiasm that we bring to the band is infectious for all to see and hear. We seem to get a great response from people of all generations,” Rob said.
With such an energetic lifestyle, Rob finds time to slow down in his studio.
His current work with digital photo paintings explore the boundaries between painting and photography. As the viewer, you are initially led to believe that the works are paintings but soon discover they are not. The works have strong references to fine-art painters from impressionism, abstract expressionism and even sculpture and printmaking.
He will have over 50 artworks hanging on display in his studio for this weekend’s Noosa Open Studio.
“The sharing of stories is probably more inspiring for me than the discussing of the work,” he said.
“I have a large body of work and because I work in the digital medium, they can be quite expensive to produce. I have numerous matt mounted prints for sale right up to 3.8 metre Panoramas on display and for sale – the smallest pieces being a mere $20,” he said.
Noosa Open Studios is a unique chance to visit Noosa artists in their private studios from the sea to the trees, learn about the artists’ creative processes, see their work and even purchase a work of art to take home from Friday 18 to Sunday 20 August.
Be creatively inspired by painters, ceramicists, mixed media artists and other artisans while driving through the picturesque shire of Noosa, discovering back roads and hidden treasures.
Printed studio guides with maps and details of artists’ studio locations are available through www.noosaopenstudios.com. There will be almost 50 artists and artisans, including RobRoy, welcoming the public into their personal creative space across the Noosa region.
“Opening my studio gives me an opportunity to reveal the stories behind each individual work, which unless I am doing a talk at a gallery, many of the viewing public do not get to hear the initial story or process,” Rob said.
