POT PLANT BY KEEGAN WALKER

In February and March of 2019, Keegan sat in an old rocking chair on his family’s verandah in Cooloolabin Gubbi Gubbi and Jinibara country). The house is over 120 years old, a Queenslander. When facing out to the verandas north, one looks onto the Blackall Ranges. Keegan spent a lot of time sitting on the verandah painting pot plants. This was especially true after rolling his ankle out skating with dear friend Andrew Brophy that summer. 

Tropical storms rolled through the ranges and Keegan admired observing them there. Keegan loved Melbourne. He also loved coming home to visit. Often Keegan would phone his friends back in Melbourne, deliberating what was next for Hoddle. One day Dylan Quirk gifted Keegan a large bag of  (eg acrylic) paints, as used in these works.

Who knows why he chose the pots he did? Maybe they communicated enough shape to act as a guide whilst giving him enough liberty to express his desire to paint freely. He probably felt a connection to family and home sitting in that spot, and these paintings provided a way to record this time. They are intuitive and reflect the relaxed, warm, clever Keegan we all knew. A natural extension of him. The colours are completely his own. His line work has a cool, spontaneous flair that he always embodied, regardless of the clothes he was wearing or borrowing. Isn’t it nice to know his character and vision could be so succinctly captured in these paintings? And don’t we all just love him? Always.