Ethan McKeague is a painter and printmaker based in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work captures landscape compositions inspired by scenery in California and reflects experiences from the subcultures of skateboarding and urban art. He has exhibited his work at the Thatcher Gallery at University of San Francisco, Art Works Downtown in San Rafael, and at Usher Gallery in Petaluma. Ethan earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at University of San Francisco in 2023. 

My experience living in the Bay Area has had a significant impact on my work. Growing up surrounded by the wildlife and scenery in Marin County, I was inspired to capture landscapes and the natural world through painting and printmaking. I’m influenced by the approach to landscape painting during the romantic period and explore ways to depict nature as sublime, picturesque, and pastoral by depicting subjects in nature as mysterious, fearsome, and interacting with humans and human creation. I’m attracted to luminosity and reflected light which I investigate in my work. As a teenager, I developed an interest in graffiti and street art through skateboarding, exposing me to different ways of approaching art. I enjoy finding ways to communicate aspects of these subcultures that viewers can connect with.