Kevin McKay is a self-taught Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n artist whose skills attracted a great deal of early attention.

McKay won his first major art prize when he was just 15 - the prize was presented by artist Clifton Pugh

Clifton Pugh

Clifton Ernest Pugh AO, was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize. He was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, and was known for his landscapes and portraiture...

. In 1985, at age 19, he won the International Youth Art Prize for his naïve

Naïve art

Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true...

 work "A New Beginning", a modern interpretation of Noah's Ark. The prize was presented by Prime Minister Bob Hawke

Bob Hawke

Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....

, who was so impressed with the work that he used it for the Hawke family Christmas cards.