Artist Pete McKee On His New Exhibition in His Hometown
Celebrating Sheffield by 'harking back to the good old days' has always inspired artist Pete McKee
In 2014 we introduced Pete to Living North readers as a talented artist ‘capable of provoking vast emotion’ with his cartoon-esque characters. At that point, he’d already received commissions from Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Paul Smith and Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys. Pete grew up on a council estate during the ‘70s in Sheffield and his working class upbringing (as well as his passion for music and fashion) continue to directly influence his creations.
‘I’ve been fighting hard to keep relevant and put on shows,’ Pete says, attempting to sum up a decade in a sentence. Over the past 10 years, he has had a life-saving liver transplant and a heart valve replacement but has never stepped back from his mission to create engaging art and accompanying art shows. For years Pete has produced work for the Teenage Cancer Trust and he’s also a patron of the Sheffield Children’s Hospital charity, Art+. In 2018, he received an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University and was presented as Doctor of Arts at that year’s graduation. Last summer, he moved his gallery to Leah’s Yard in Sheffield city centre.
Pete has produced many major showcases of his work over the years including This Class Works, a positive exploration of being working class, Don’t Adjust Your Mindset, with a focus on social media and lockdown, and Frank and Joy: a Love Story. ‘[That was] in a factory space where I recreated a pub and told the love story of Frank and Joy, who are a couple I painted on the side of Fagan’s pub,’ he says.
But none of these shows match the scale of The Boy with a Leg Named Brian: Memoirs by Pete McKee, currently showing at Weston Park Museum until 2nd November. ‘To have a show at Weston Park [Museum] for a year is incredible, and a privilege,’ Pete says, ‘and it means everyone has a chance to see the show. I had clear direction from Weston Park that they wanted this to be locally-themed and also very child-friendly. There are hordes of children from schools visiting during the day because it’s a museum as well as an art gallery so I thought it would be the ideal moment to explore my childhood by doing a biographical exhibition, because a lot of my work is biographical – although I don’t put myself in the centre, I make it a generalisation.’
Taking its title from a patch sewn onto Pete’s jeans as a child, the exhibition explores Pete’s youth in the ‘70s through more than 95 of his creations. Pete has split the show into five ‘chapters’ to showcase his earliest memories. The Castle Market Years explores Pete’s relationship with his mother before she passed away when he was young. ‘The next chapter [My Family & Other Animals] is about how the rest of my family and I interact and my life in the council house I grew up in in Batemoor,’ he says. ‘It’s an interior-themed section. Then [Acting the Goat] is about playing out with my mates and the fourth section [Rites of Passage] is about how music and fashion changed my world, changed me as a person and gave me focus growing up. The final section [My Sheffield] is a kind of love letter to Sheffield and the places, buildings and scenarios that shaped me growing up there.
‘I wanted everyone to have a fulfilled visit so in each section there’s something interactive to participate in – I thought that was really important. It’s very mixed media. There’s sculptural works, physical items, found objections and interactions. In the first section for example, there’s a child’s mechanical horse ride to chuck a quid in. That’s in direct relation to a painting that I did of me and mum called Castle Market. In the second section, because it’s about my influences as a child reading comics, I do a workshop that kids can get involved in. In the third section, there’s a Space Invaders machine – a proper arcade one that everyone can have a go at. In the fourth section, I’ve done a playlist with influential songs from my childhood, and in the final section, I’ve done an art installation video with a football going on a journey around Sheffield.’
Who inspires you?
There are many artists in the past who have inspired me, and it’s a direct correlation to my work. There’s Edward Hopper and his pathos, for example. There’s an artwork in the show by an artist called Patrick Caulfield and it’s a picture of a clock that’s graphically done. I saw that when I was 15 at Graves Gallery and I thought “wow, that’s like something straight out of a Beano”. It was very precisely drawn but because it was done in straight black lines, to me it was a cartoon drawing, and years down the line I’m creating artwork inspired by that. Those two, for instance, are inspiring. But if I see work now, contemporary work, and it’s really good, that inspires me too. That goes for musicians too, like Rebecca Lucy Taylor, known as Self Esteem. If you see how she operates in creating a persona for herself and creating music around that… that’s art. That works for Róisín Murphy as well. Those sort of people are inspiring, and it’s encouraging.
Where do you recommend visitors to Sheffield should go?
Sheffield city centre is on the up. I’ve got a new gallery on Cambridge Street and that area is really nice. Take a little saunter down Sharrow Vale Road and you could spend a good couple of hours in the little cafés and independent shops, bars and restaurants. There’s Kelham Island. Obviously, one of the attractions of Sheffield is that it’s just minutes away from the Peaks so there’s always a trip into the countryside, but Sheffield now is creating itself as an independent city with lots of great independents. There’s a plethora of restaurants I could name because I love food and I eat out a lot, including [at] North Town Deli & Kitchen.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Nothing, because where I’ve got to now is through a collection of errors, mistakes and determination! If I could change anything back then, I might not be where I am now. I’m not the kind of guy to believe in fate but those sliding doors moments [have] certainly happened in my life. I’m not changing anything!
