Mary Mackay is an artist based in Stirlingshire. She became a full time artist after graduating from Edinburgh College of Art with Honours in Painting in 2014. Prior to that she taught biology and science.
Mackay is best known for her paintings, often abstract pieces, in which there can be a fine line between chaos, order and form.
Her abstract work is built up in layers where unexpected combinations of colour and form can reveal the direction of the work and the original idea might only be glimpsed as ephemeral elements in the finished work.
She creates a metaphor on canvas of a journey in the literal and temporal sense from her surroundings.
Mackay has travelled through some of the wilder parts of Scotland, but it is West Stirlingshire that resonates most and provides ideas. These experiences as well as involvement with biological sciences provide a broad and rich tapestry from which her visual imagery can be realised. Creating a woodland garden in her Stirlingshire home has recently fed into this narrative.
I find that I am not a consistent artist, I change themes, occasionally materials, and size, and sometimes I am blocked and at other times work very quickly. Often, what I produce one year looks very different from previous years and occasionally I re-visit ideas and ways of doing.
However, I work in two dimensions and in layers, reference to landscape and botanicals are regular features and I have some idea in mind of what I want to produce.
Each mark and layer informs what follows, this procedure is a bit experimental but I tend to know instinctively when it is done, complete. This can take many months and changes of mood and outside occurrences’ can influence my thinking and unconscious impulses. I am often surprised at the’ finished’ product, not quite knowing how I got there, but, what I call a’ knowing’ tells me that
Colour combination, forms, and precision combine together that fits with my sensibilities at that time.
Mackay is best known for her paintings, often abstract pieces, in which there can be a fine line between chaos, order and form.
Her abstract work is built up in layers where unexpected combinations of colour and form can reveal the direction of the work and the original idea might only be glimpsed as ephemeral elements in the finished work.
She creates a metaphor on canvas of a journey in the literal and temporal sense from her surroundings.
Mackay has travelled through some of the wilder parts of Scotland, but it is West Stirlingshire that resonates most and provides ideas. These experiences as well as involvement with biological sciences provide a broad and rich tapestry from which her visual imagery can be realised. Creating a woodland garden in her Stirlingshire home has recently fed into this narrative.
I find that I am not a consistent artist, I change themes, occasionally materials, and size, and sometimes I am blocked and at other times work very quickly. Often, what I produce one year looks very different from previous years and occasionally I re-visit ideas and ways of doing.
However, I work in two dimensions and in layers, reference to landscape and botanicals are regular features and I have some idea in mind of what I want to produce.
Each mark and layer informs what follows, this procedure is a bit experimental but I tend to know instinctively when it is done, complete. This can take many months and changes of mood and outside occurrences’ can influence my thinking and unconscious impulses. I am often surprised at the’ finished’ product, not quite knowing how I got there, but, what I call a’ knowing’ tells me that
Colour combination, forms, and precision combine together that fits with my sensibilities at that time.
