After working as a barman, Jim MacKeever went as a mature student in 1978 to the Art and Design Centre of the University of Ulster, where he specialised in ceramics. He took his degree in 1982. He has been involved as a ceramics and craft tutor with mentally ill students in Beacon House, Belfast.

In 1988 he studied at a master class under Eduardo Paolozzi at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. He exhibits widely and runs the Pump Gallery from his own house in County Down.