My name is Ryan Christian McKee, thanks for checking out my website…there is so much noise and distraction in the world that getting eyes on any creative endeavor you might be involved with is not the easiest thing, so I really appreciate you being here!

I was born in 1981 in Salt Lake City, Utah and raised there. For the last 16 years however I’ve been living in Dallas, TX.

There are a lot of people in the art world that take themselves way too seriously, it’s funny to sit back and observe this. In contrast I became aware of artists such as John Brosio and Eric Joyner years back and they just seemed like regular guys that liked to paint. They took a more playful approach to what they were doing. I felt like that’s the camp I belonged in. The sterile unapproachable façade that so many artists put up whether they can paint or not was never me…I thought “If you can’t have fun painting and enjoy yourself making art then what’s the point?”.

Growing up my mother had an appreciation for art and had lots of coffee table art books around. During idle moments I would flip through these and be amazed at the work of various artist although I had no clue how to do what they did. My mother had the desire to learn how to paint and even completed some good watercolor and oil paintings but with the responsibility of being a stay-at-home mom there was never enough time for her to develop the craft the way she would have liked, but due to her interest there were brushes and paint around for me to play with and so I did dabble… but all I accomplished was destroying brushes by not washing out the oil paint correctly.

I took a college oil painting course in 1999 that I basically flunked out of…I’m not really a school person and just got super bored painting sepia-colored spheres and squares. I don’t really learn things in a classroom setting… I have to just do it and figure it out as I go and that’s what I did. I made a lot of failed paintings that were garbage even by beginner standards. I would never say I had any natural ability whatsoever. To those who say I could never learn to paint I tell them of course you can… just like a roofer can learn to roof or a plumber can learn to do plumbing work. It’s a craft and if you learn the process and get some terrible paintings under your belt eventually it will start to make sense.

I’m still trying to figure out this thing called painting…sometimes it seems like the deeper you get into it the harder it becomes but I finally realized that’s just your standards getting higher as you expect more out of yourself.

I will be painting and doing shows in and around the Dallas area, pop in and see my art I would be honored!