Casey McKee on The Aristocracy of the Imperishables and His Shift from Berlin to the German Countryside

Key facts

• Casey McKee is currently working on a portrait series titled The Aristocracy of the Imperishables.
• The series envisions a speculative future in which corporate elites have reshaped society into privatised neo-feudal territories.
• The paintings replace monarchs and saints with executives, tech magnates, and heirs to concentrated wealth.
• McKee cites Snowbird, a painting of a golf cart on a road engulfed by fire, as representative of his practice today.
• In 2014–15, McKee lived in Shanghai for a little over a year, which led to a dramatic shift in his painting approach.
• About six years ago, McKee was diagnosed with autism, which he says played a major role in his development as an artist.
• After fifteen years in Berlin, McKee relocated to a small village in the German countryside near the Harz Mountains and the River Elbe.
• McKee began his career through photography, using an analogue process to print black-and-white images onto surfaces such as wood, paper, and canvas, and later added oil paint before moving entirely to oil a few years ago.
• The painting Disaster Selfie started with a photograph McKee took in Hong Kong of a young man taking an exaggerated selfie; he later added a burning oil spill and developed it into a series about social media as a behaviour modification tool.
• McKee continues to create new portraits for The Aristocracy of the Imperishables and is exploring new approaches to his conflict businessmen paintings.
• The interview was published on Singulart Magazine on October 12, 2026.