ARTIST STATEMENT:
Alison Mackay’s art celebrates and explores objects and the use of paint. The paint itself is as important as the subject matter – its movement and textures become the language for describing volumes and surfaces. Her subject matter is what surrounds her; the stuff of life in its random complexity, ordinariness and – occasionally - eccentricity.
Whilst visual aesthetic is important to Alison, her work deals more with obsession than decoration. Her repeated studies of objects – a particular cut of meat, glass bottles, dying flowers, books, fish, cutlery, the pattern in a cloth – all show a compulsion to decipher their structure and fabric; to translate their being into paint.
Although Alison’s work has an honesty derived from the familiarity of its subject matter and the singularity of its focus, it is not simple. Rather, it is a distillation of a moment in a life, achieved through an object observed, explored and - quite often - celebrated.
Alison Mackay is based near Jervis Bay on the NSW south coast.
Her works have been finalists in several national art prizes including The Mosman Art Prize, The Eutick Memorial Still Life Award, The Portia Geach Memorial Award, The NSW Parliament’s Plein Air Prize, the Black Swan portraiture prize and The Gallipoli Prize. She was the winner of the Waverley Works on Paper prize and The Fisher’s Ghost Prize for traditional work.
Alison’s work has been shown throughout Australia and overseas.
