BRIAN MCKEE brian@brianmckeestudio.com

For the past ten years I have focused my photographic work looking at and attempting to create a view of both the current and past social and political atmospheres of countries around the world. My subject matter is routed in architecture and the idea that houses, buildings, towns and cities provide us with a true understanding of the cultures that inhabited those spaces. They are also a reflection of the social and political atmosphere. My work has ranged from ancient abandoned cities in places such as India and Cambodia, to the destruction of war torn Afghanistan and Lebanon and most recently to the vast nature reserves being destroyed to build the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Although the work is spread across vast time periods, geographic locations and cultures, there is one theme that I always attempt to work with. It varies from project to project in its complexities but to put it simply I quote the author Chinua Achebe when he says “ Things Fall Apart”. It is a simple way to put it, but in the end my main body of work examines how we are able to view this over and over again in all cultures and all time periods. Even when a culture abandons a place, it leaves behind its remains and through these remains we see a common thread, that there is always a decline and that socially and politically we create and we destroy, we fall and we rise. Brian McKee was born in 1977 in Excelsior Springs, Missouri and attended the Interlochen Arts Academy and Bard College. While at Bard College he studied photography with Stephen Shore, Larry Fink and Barbara Ess. For five years he was the assistant to the photographer Lynn Davis. He currently lives and works in New York City and Vienna, Austria. Links Hilger Contemporary Nusser & Baumgart A Photo A Day (c)2010 brian mckee all rights reserved.

CASTLE VIEW WEST AFGHANISTAN #23 - 2002 - C-PRINT ON ALUMINUM THE POWER SUITES #14 - 2009 -