Artists have expressed support for unconventional lifestyles throughout the history of Western art. In modern times the dialogue has become a major topic of avant-garde art and literature. Manet placed the prostitute Kiki in his famous rendition of Titian’s Venus of Urbino to provoke the conservative art academy of Paris in the 1860s. In post-war America, the creative generation that would be called the Beats sought a different lifestyle than the mainstream. Artists like Allen Ginsberg and Ed Kienholtz expressed outrage towards the pressure to confirm to a white, straight, materialistic model of American life. Predictably, the dialogue continues today.

Paul D. McKee takes on the noble cause in his MFA thesis with an installation titled Trophies of the American Home, a work that turns the dining room of an American home inside out leaving the viewer feeling strangely uncomfortable and somewhat out of place- to McKee, much the same feeling that gay and lesbian Americans may feel about everyday life.

The installation operates as a room within a room. The viewer enters a space of disjointed walls designed to appear complete and where functional items are rendered useless in an attempt, in McKee’s words, “to disrupt the domestic tranquility of our notion of home.” In his artists statement McKee notes” I introduce the viewer to my present situation: an outsider in a traditional heterosexual environment struggling to make sense of these common structures and their relationship to success and the accomplishments of the so-called American dream.” 

Along with a finely honed psychological point of view, Trophies of an American Home also exhibits a great sense of craftsmanship. McKee has created items of skilled production. Upholstered trophy mounts containing odd items, strange animals and human parts, empty ornate picture frames appearing on garish wallpaper, all demonstrate a skilled hand in production. A table centerpiece of finely tuned silk flowers, antlers and a demonic head keep the viewer on edge reminding us this is a alien space- not one designed for bland comfort. Clearly, the artist has spent a great deal of effort in creating this installation.

Trophies of an American Home is rare in many aspects to Wichita viewers. First and foremost, the artist has chosen the vehicle of installation to form his art, greatly limiting the market of potential buyers. Such a large grouping of objects would be difficult to install in one’s home or office.  This is a work is most suitable for institutional purposes.

Secondly, Paul D. McKee lays out the most private aspects of his personality for all to see and asks the viewer to experience the same feelings of being outside the mainstream culture. Although this work is specifically sexually based, it operates equally well with respect to racial, national, or any other sub-group within a dominant society. It makes the viewer confront his or her judgments about minority members of their culture.

Hopefully, Trophies of an American Home will succeed in the artist’s desire to promote understanding and acceptance towards minority groups. That would be the most noble of results for a work of art. 

Paul D. McKee’s vision of the American home is different than Martha Stewart’s.

In his installation Trophies of the American Home, McKee replaces the domestic tranquility of subtle colors and comfortable home decor with items meant to show the falsity of these places as seen by disenfranchised members of our American society, specifically the gay and lesbian community. Upon entering the dining room, one begins to feel the resentment of our hetero-sexual majority as you view the room’s contents. The centerpiece on the table, the empty frames on the garish walls and the oddly symbolic trophies around the room cause the viewer to feel out of place, and somehow unwanted. The work becomes a metaphor for the judgment and rejection of those who do not fit the model of the hetero-sexual American culture. Martha has been replaced by Divine.

Dinner anyone?   

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"DISPLACE Hits Home"

The Wichita City Paper
February 22 2007
Spike Hemans

In the search for an identity people often associate themselves with ideas or causes, and there is often a love/hate relationship with their hometown. One can find it’s easy to be bitter about growing up in a city far away from the so-called hubs of culture, and Wichita native Paul McKee hits the mark with his upcoming show Displace, an exhibition of sculpture and paintings that opens this final Friday at the Fisch Haus gallery.

A resident of Seattle for 10 years who recently came home to the buckle of the Bible Belt, McKee, a gay man, is no stranger to the feeling of displacement and shock that can accompany such a move between cultures. “Moving back to Wichita, my work has been moving toward examining the concept of home, also of sexual identity and frustration,” he said. Perhaps this frustration has been serving as motivation for the 34-year-old WSU grad student, as his latest body of work is a powerhouse of idea and thought.

“I was a florist and a carpenter for over 10 years, and a lot of that plays in on material choices,” McKee said. He uses grossly painted faux roses and constructs elaborate frames for his three-dimensional works. “It all gets sort of pushed back into my artwork, how I go about creating my work,” he added. Apparently doing all sorts of skilled labor can largely influences your material choices, as McKee expertly combines a dizzying array of pre-made and custom- built materials.

In perhaps his most powerful and outlandish work, Untitled (chandelier), McKee drops his own twisted creation directly into our viewing space, complete with eerie 1960s electric candle-light, the stark contrast of black roses and crows against the gloss white of his packaging tape deer heads seizes your attention. By working in such a manner, the artist comments on the social and gender roles in our society, exposing the sick fragility of an awkward culture, teetering on the edge of decadence.

In addition to his 3D work McKee also brings us a collection of paintings, which serve as a continuation of his ideas. “I don’t like to choose one media over the other,” he said, “as far as I’m concerned, the more that I can add to my artistic repertoire, the better.” His paintings are rich in imagery, the most prevalent a sort of “animal-as-man” pattern that permeates the body of his work. McKee generalizes and repeats his message, cementing his unique ideas into the viewer’s brain.

A recurrent motif, the crow, acts as a dark urban reminder of his place of residence. In a move toward self-portraiture, McKee places buck heads atop a human male body, showing that while he is in fact a male, he doesn’t accept or adhere to the culturally prescribed “male” qualities. Other less veiled depictions of animals include more birds and fowl, most prevalent of which are large red cocks.

Other incorporated images include various sizes of targets. The targets are perhaps a reminder of his membership to an often ostracized and discriminated subculture, the gay community. While often over the top in his painted interactions, the culmination of his work into this upcoming show is your best bet for a Final Friday destination.

“I’m really excited to be showing at the Fisch Haus. Those guys have done such tremendous things down there,” McKee said. His opening reception for Displace begins at 7 p.m. this final Friday. “I approached some members, such as Elizabeth [Stevenson] and Patrick [Duegaw], who thankfully allotted me space for a solo show. Fisch Haus is one of the best places to have a showing, simply because of its standing in the arts community. I’m really honored.”

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"Gay artist's DISPLACE Exhibits Isolation and Placelessness"

The Liberty Press
April 2007
Matt Hanne

WICHITA - As you walked into the Fisch Haus studios between Feb. 23 and Mar. 23, you were greeted by a slightly off-putting sight. The piece is entitled "The Preservation of Time: Trophy Buck." A faceless buck made from strapping tape was hung on the wall, with a photo of a child holding a rifle off to the side and a long grey strip of felt dangling from a box covering the buck's head. Surrounding the pile of felt on the floor are several jars, some filled with felt and some empty.
At first glance it is a lot to take in.
However, after viewing the entirety of Paul D. McKee's exhibition, "Displace," the sculpture makes much more sense.
The exhibit featured five paintings and four sculptures, containing within them several buck heads, many butterflies, hummingbirds and ravens, lots of mason jars, and countless targets. All of it combined to create an exhibit which exuded an uneasy, internal struggle between where the artist seemingly wishes to be and where he is. A sense of loss, both of time and of identity, was felt from many of the pieces, as well as feelings of being without direction and trying to escape from a perceived enclosure.
Perhaps the most visually striking piece was a Chandelier which hung in the center of the gallery, entitled "Chandelier with Buck and Hives." It incorporated three strapping tape bucks which had electric candles interspersed throughout their antlers. Below the bucks were ten honeycombs fanned out, dripping "honey" onto the floor. In the center of each honeycomb were jars, half of them empty and half with a raven trapped inside.
Despite the working lights, this chandelier seemed to absorb more light than it put out, ironically being a chandelier which did not bring light. It seemed to suggest that good things in life (the honey) are passing by and being wasted and the only thing that can be held on to and caught are the undesired things (the ravens).
In "Untitled," pictures of an infant, a father figure and a blurry family vacation photograph are overpowered by a cartoonish rat which has antlers sprouting from its head. Near the bottom of the painting were emergency breathing instructions from an airplane, suggesting suffocation on past memories, or perhaps feeling suffocated by the ugliness of a past reality when compared with imagined ideal circumstances.
Most of the pieces had this kind of detail, making dissecting each one a pleasure, even if the piece itself seemed painful. In fact, this made the art mat much more interesting, because it invited viewers to question the extent to which they feel similar emotions when confronted with the reality of their own lives.
Some pieces, such as the painting "Displaced/Following Wojnarowicz" and the sculpture "Re-Construct" suggested some hope and future happiness. Both pieces incorporated butterflies (a symbol of change and recreation), and the sculpture also used wooden houses of different sizes, indicating the existence of a place to call "home."
McKee's exhibition "Displaced" was, although it is not exactly the right word, enjoyable. This is true from both an intellectual and an aesthetic standpoint. His consistent use of shared imagery between the paintings and the sculptures created a common language through which he communicated to his audience, contributing to an effective and powerfully expressionistic artistic statement.