b. 1956, Brisbane, Australia
Lives and works, Sydney, Australia.
McKenna has exhibited regularly since the early 1980s and recent solo exhibitions include- Art of Collecting- Noel McKenna, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Sydney (2016), Art Basel Hong Kong 2014 with Mother's Tankstation, Noel McKenna, Absurdia: Noel McKenna- A Focus, Newcastle Art Gallery, NSW (2012), Michael Reid at Murrurundi, NSW (2010), Noel McKenna - 29 centimetres closer, Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand (2010), Northland, motherâs tankstation, Dublin, Ireland (2008,2011,2015), and The Weekly Bus-Rail Ticket: Noel McKenna, National Art School Gallery, Sydney (2008). McKennaâs work is frequently included in group exhibitions including, The Popular Pet Show, National Portait Gallery, Canberra, (2017), Solitaire, Tarrawarra Art Museum, Victoria (2014), Conflict: Contemporary Responses to War, UQ Art Museum(2015), South of No North, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2013), Basil Sellers Art Prize 2010, Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Fully Booked, Arts Project Australia, Melbourne (2010), avoiding myth & message: Australian artists and the literary world, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2009) and Look out Wembley Arena, MOP, Sydney (2008).
His work is held in many significant public and private collections throughout Australia and New Zealand including Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Bank, Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, Australia, Macquarie Bank, Sydney, Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia, Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, Australia, and Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand.
âIt is precisely through insisting that every scenario convey constriction and every impulse towards motion is circumscribedâthe cat-up-a-tree syndrome, we could call itâthat McKenna brings his allegory of escape alive. In choosing vulnerability as the point of compositionâjumping, balancing, falling, staring, disappearingâMcKenna invests the ânot-muchnessâ of each painting with the quality of an involving struggle. Itâs as if McKenna looks at the world and is immediately, effortlessly existential. The effort comes in combating dread with care and feeling...â
(excerpt from Noel McKenna by Damien Wilkins, 2005)
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