Alastair Mackie’s work, normally in sculptural form, deals with primal urges, the passage of time and basic existence. The idea of metamorphosis runs throughout, tracing the journey from nature to culture and back again. Loaded with meaning, his art practice challenges us to re-consider how familiar we actually are with our surroundings. Equally combining humour and irrationality, Mackie’s works are calm and seductive; enticing you in only to leave you intrigued and amazed at how something that is often so unsettling can be made into something so beautiful.
A piece from 2011 titled ‘A is to B as B is to C’ presented a stack of blank sheets of paper made from over three hundred abandoned wasp nests that had been reconstituted to a fine wood pulp and machine processed at a paper mill. By doing this Mackie sought to trace the journey or ‘states of being’ of one substance absorbed by another and then reconfigured it into a work of art. In another piece a fine veneer made up of geometric diamond forms was constructed through the meticulous reworking of hundreds of cuttlefish bones found washed up on beaches. Very early works saw him creating spheres from tiny mouse skulls.
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Mackie’s complex practice is often labour-intensive but the result is almost always disarmingly simple. He brings order to nature's chaos by reconciling the formal with the conceptual, challenging our deep-rooted sense of separation between the manmade and natural world. In his most recent body of work the conceptual aesthetic of minimalism is reconsidered through the use of natural materials. A complex wooden lattice systematically encases a series of bird’s eggs while the miniature heads of hornets are used to create an abstract wall panel. In each case the transformation of states of being is at the heart of Mackie’s practice, which leads to a new perception of the natural world that surrounds us.
Born in 1977, Alastair Mackie has shown his work extensively in the UK and abroad and is widely collected. In 2004 Charles Saatchi purchased a number of works for the ‘New Blood’ exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, which lead to his first solo exhibition in 2005 with London gallerist Max Wigram. In 2009 he had his second solo exhibition ‘Not Waving But Drowning’ at The David Roberts Art Foundation. Concurrently his first public outdoor piece ‘Mimetes Anon’, commissioned by The Contemporary Art Society, was exhibited at the Economist Plaza in St. James's, London. 2013 has seen solo shows in London and Los Angeles, and group exhibitions included Glasstress: White Light / White Heat, an official collateral event of the 55th international art exhibition La Biennale di Venezia.
Alastair lives and works in Cornwall, UK