Andrew Mackenzie
Oil on panel
2011

Mackenzie’s starting point for these paintings is the notion of “overlapping relationships between landscape, the urban environment and nature”, using specific examples of nearby winter plane trees. The man-made city is seen entangled with the sinuous forms of the trees in a repeating rhythm of branching patterns.

He dissolves the interface between interior and exterior, bringing the outside in. The viewpoint is shifting and changing – it is not static or fixed, but is multiple. Trees float mysteriously over other trees, while layers of diagrammatic line drawing over these suggest depth and movement, but in a way which defies conventional reading, reinforcing the two-dimensional sense of surface. This creates a constant push and pull between surface and subject. The drawings sometimes suggest particular aspects of the street outside the glass, while others appear to be simply lines, depicting only themselves.

The artist builds up the subtly textured surface over many months, applying and removing paint repeatedly. All drawing, including preparatory, is created with paint directly onto the field of the painting, leaving behind ghostly - sometimes almost imperceptable - traces and echoes.

Andrew Mackenzie is a multi award winning Scottish artist, born in Banff, North East Scotland. He graduated with an MFA from Edinburgh College of Art in 1993, and has exhibited widely. Collection include: The Fleming Collection, Bank of Scotland, Bank of America, Mayer Brown, Royal Academy and Fidelity Investments.