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STATEMENT
I make drawings and paintings which explore personal responses to the relationship between the constructed landscape and perceptions of nature.
They are based on specific experiences and memories of actual places.
My working process involves constantly building-up then stripping back the surface over a long period of time (sometimes up to a year), repeatedly reinstating then obscuring incised line-drawings, until left with a kind of echo or trace - like a resonance of the original memory.
I aim to create paintings which appear contemplative, balanced and beautiful, but which may provoke thought regarding the origin of the idea. I often select places and structures which are either obsolete or utilitarian, such as a roadside toilet block (glimpsed from a passing car), a water treatment facility on a beach, a nuclear power-station or a disused outdoor swimming pool, in order to challenge the nostalgic and romantic associations of the term "landscape".
For example, the series "Untitled (sodium underpass)" (2003) is based on a pedestrian underpass beneath the A1 trunk road in rural Berwickshire. Through this passes the Southern Upland Way, a long distance walk which traverses Southern Scotland.
The unremarkable concrete structure of the underpass is lit at night with a sodium glow and has collected a substantial body of graffiti; an urban oasis in the midst of fields and open spaces. It appears to invert the aspirations, aims and perceptions of The Southern Upland Way, signifying and prompting instead an association with "the city" and all that implies.
The rich and layered surface of the paintings in the series "Untitled (blue glowing pastoral landscape)" (2003) suggest an image of idyllic beauty. Incised into the paint are subtle, delicate and ghost-like drawings of trees. This is contrasted at the top and bottom by clean white horizontal bands of white.
The title refers to a pastoral tradition of idealised landscape painting, in particular the 17th c. French painter Claude Lorraine, whose work influenced the design of "real" landscapes. They are therefore paintings based on a personal memory of a particular place, the design of which was inspired by paintings of an idealised (invented) vision of nature.
The "blue glowing" part of the title refers to the backs of the paintings which are painted with fluorescent blue paint. This reflects off the wall, suggesting the man-made glow of artificial light, and is intended to remind the viewer of the constructed nature of our landscape.
"His art has all the purity and simplicity that one looks for in this kind of visible music. But his lovely compositions of balanced shapes in grey and white, and subtle variations of surface have titles such as Untitled (power station, hidden wires), Untitled (pier), or Untitled (suspended walkway). The use of "Untitled" is a convention of abstract art, but in the bracketed bit the artist seems to direct us to the actual landscape experience that was the original grit for his pearl. And, indeed, pearls they are. Exquisitely made, they seem to be the record of a process of gradual refinement; the distillation of the essential music as all the interference and ambient noise is stripped away to leave the eloquence of simplicity."
Duncan Macmillan, Scotsman - 5 star review
"…Mackenzie's paintings are sparse studies in abstracted space. But like icebergs with much of their bulk underwater, they suggest much more."
Susannah Beaumont, The List - 4 star review
"These paintings reveal an inherent contradiction: pared down and unsentimental in their intent, they are densely layered, worked upon and reworked and somehow surreptitiously suffused with emotion."
Moira Jeffrey, The Glasgow Herald
"Definitely something happening."
Matthew Collings, writer and broadcaster
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