Alastair Mackie

Born in 1977, Mackie has shown extensively in the UK and internationally, including exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery – London, the Venice Biennale and the Reykjavik Art Museum. He has worked on a number of public commissions and his work is held in collections including The Olbricht Collection – Berlin, the Salsali Private Museum – Dubai, and the Wellcome Collection – London. Alastair lives and works in Cornwall.

Alastair Mackie’s sculptural practice is one of contrasts. It is as labour-intensive as it is formally effortless, as grounded in ideas of nature as it is in the intrinsically human struggle to define a role within the environment; it is as intellectually ambitious as it is aesthetically understated. Mackie grew up in an agricultural community, where he resettled more recently, and that landscape of his childhood has played a key role in shaping his vocabulary. Organic elements (trees, mud, wasp nests, sea shells) are meticulously rearranged and transformed in a knowingly quixotic attempt to order life’s primordial chaos.
 Each work is something of an enigma, enriched by the loaded associations of its material and the story behind its making.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS:

2015
      Alastair Mackie: Selected Works, Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
2013
      Complex Systems, Gusford, Los Angeles, United States
2013      Multiplicity, All Visual Arts, London, UK
2011      
Copse, All Visual Arts, London, UK
2011      I was there, in Arcadia, PAG, London, UK
2009
      Mimetes Anon, The Economist Plaza, London, UK
2009      Not Waving but Drowning, The David Roberts Foundation, London, UK
2006
      Sticks and Stones, Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, United States
2005
      Terror Firma, Max Wigram Gallery, London, UK

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:

2017
      Doing Identity – The Collection of Reydan Weiss, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany
2017      Internal Nebular, Haarlem Artspace, Wirksworth, UK
2017      ARK, Chester Cathedral, UK
2017      Pure Nature Art. Natural Materials in Contemporary Art, Museum Kunst der Westküste, Germany
2017      450 Year Anniversary of the collection at Ambras Castle, Innsbruck, Austria
2017      Proof of Life, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Germany
2017      Force of Nature, The Art Pavilion, London, UK
2016      
Abu Dhabi Art, Paul Stolper Gallery, UAE
2016      I Prefer Life, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Germany
2016      Art Brussels, Copperfield / Division of Labour, Brussels, Belgium
2016      Force of Nature, Galerie Valérie Bach, Brussels, Belgium
2016      Forever, Bubox, Kortrijk, Belgium
2016      Works on Paper and Wood, Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna, Austria
2016      Empty Rooms – The Beauty of Emptiness, Museum Kunst der Westküste, Germany
2015      
Manchester Contemporary, Copperfield Gallery, Manchester, UK
2015      Shared, Somerset House, London, UK
2014
      Here today…, The Old Sorting Office, London, UK
2014      What Marcel Duchamp Taught Me, FAS, London, UK
2014      
Alchemy, Nest, The Hague, Netherlands
Additions of the present, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany
2014      Building Site, Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, UK
2014      Home – The Crisis Commission, The Strand Gallery, London, UK
2014      Obsessive Compulsive Order, Copperfield Gallery, London, UK
2014      Art and Alchemy – The Mystery of Transformation, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf‏, Germany

In association with Copperfield Gallery.