MADELINE MACKAY

Image credit: Miriam Rudolph

Flesh is present everywhere in my work. It appears overtly in the skin and puckered strips of meat that pervade my images, and subtly in the suggestively biological patterns that I make with meat and the animacy with which it recoils back into shape and echoes the movement of my hands as I repeatedly arrange and rearrange it. My work is about flesh: understanding flesh, fighting it and compromising with it. 

Through printmaking, drawing, photography, and video, I examine the experience of existing in a body, with particular attention to the relationship between psychological experiences and the body. Our flesh reflects intimately the tensions that we carry around in our minds and my work seeks to give a physical form to these psychological tangles and connect them to the flesh that they exist within. I explore the correlation between mental stress and physical ill-health, and the anxiety of existing in a material body that belongs as much to chemical and environmental influences and its other microscopic inhabitants as it does to us. 

Meat is my primary imagery because it is both of the body and not of it, compelling in its relationship to our own material and abject in its separation from the body. It exists suspended between ‘us’ and ‘other’. The knots and repetitive patterns that I performatively construct from the meat are both an act of ownership, a motion to assert control over this uncertain material, and an echo of the convoluted relationship between the body and the mind.

In an age of information when it is easy to forget that the mind needs the body, my images lean toward its gross materiality and embrace it.

I am a Scottish visual artist based in Calgary, Canada, where I am an instructor in printmaking at Alberta University of the Arts. I hold an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Alberta, Canada, and a BA (hons) from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee. I have exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the UK, Canada and internationally, and have received awards from institutions including the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. My work is held in collections including Cork Printmakers, the UBCO Teaching Collection, University of Alberta Art Collections, SGCI Archives and the Royal Scottish Academy.

CV

Education

2015-18      MFA in Printmaking, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

2008-12      BA Fine Art, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee

Awards and scholarships

2019           Nominated for the Queen Sonja Print Award

2018           Mary Louise Imrie Graduate Student Award

2017           Melba Sadler Graduate Scholarship in art and Design

                    Scottish International Educational Scholarship

2016           Departmental Scholarship, University of Alberta

2015           Departmental Scholarship, University of Alberta

2013           RSW Alexander Graham Munro Travel Award

                    RE Anthony Dawson Young Printmaker Award

2012           RSA Barns-Graham Travel Award

                    RE Joseph Webb Memorial Prize

                    WPA Timothy Greenwood Award

Teaching

2019-20     Instructor in Print Media, Alberta University of the Arts, Calgary, Canada

2017           Instructor in Fine Arts, University of Alberta

Solo exhibitions

2020           Not Yet Earth, Atelier Presse Papier, Trois-Rivieres, Canada

2019           Visceral Strands, Rocky Mountain Print Alliance Symposium, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

                    Not Yet Earth, Martha Street Studio Gallery, Winnipeg, Canada

2018           Not Yet Earth, Alberta Printmakers Gallery, Calgary, Canada

                    Remains, Impact 10, Santander, Spain

                    Not Yet Earth, FAB Gallery, University of Alberta, Edmonton

2017           Suspended, FAB Cabinet Gallery, Edmonton, Canada

2016           Liminal Space and Decay, The Project Space Gallery, Edmonton, Canada

2014           Madeline Mackay, The Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

Group exhibitions

2020           Dyscorpia 2.1, online digital exhibition originating in Edmonton, Canada

2019           First Impressions, Vernon Public Art Gallery, Vernon, Canada

2018           Printmaking in the Anthropocene, University of Glasgow, UK and AGA and Shaw Conference Centre,                                                Edmonton, Canada

                    Change Climate, Rutherford Library Galleria, Edmonton, Alberta

2017           8^th SplitGraphic Biennial, University Gallery “Vasko Lipovak”, Split, Croatia

                    Quick Dirty, The Lodge, Edmonton, Canada

                    In Conversation, eHub, Edmonton, Canada

                    Hope and Fear – Our Collective Response, Rutherford Library Galleria, Edmonton, Canada

2016           Art in the Anthropocene, Banff Centre for the arts, Banff, Canada

                    Fresh Prints, SNAP Print Workshop, Edmonton, Canada

2015           SNAP Members' Exhibition, SNAP Print Workshop, Edmonton, Canada

                    Festschrift, House for an Art Lover, Glasgow, UK

                    Eoghan Bridge – Lotte Globb Janette Ker – Alan Macdonald – Jane Macneill – Madeline Mackay, Kilmorack                                Gallery, Inverness-Shire, UK

2014           Lyth Summer Show, Lyth Arts Centre, Caithness, UK

                    Nicola Toms - Madeline Mackay, Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, Sussex, UK

                    Celtic connections, Lime Tree Gallery, Bristol, UK

2013           Hock-Aun Teh - Alan McGowan - Madeline Mackay, Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness-Shire, UK

                    RSA Annual Members Exhibition, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK

                    RSA New Contemporaries Exhibition, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK

                    Summer exhibition, Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, Sussex, UK

                    Animal Inspirations, Gallery Heinzel, Aberdeen, UK

                    Dorset Exhibition (in association with the Moncrieff-Bray Gallery), Dorset, UK

                    Winter Exhibition, Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness-shire, UK

                    Making an Impact, Impact 8 Print Conference, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

                    Impact 8 print conference open folio session, Impact 8 Print Conference, Dundee, UK

                    On a Small Scale, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

                    The Drawing Room, Open Eye Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

                    Royal College of Physicians Christmas Exhibition, Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh, UK

2012           Christmas Exhibition, Kilmorack Gallery, Inverness-shire, UK

                    Cabinet Show, Compass Gallery, Glasgow, UK

                    Autumn Exhibition, Moncrieff-Bray Gallery, West Sussex, UK

                    New Generation Show, Compass Gallery, Glasgow, UK

                    Degree Show, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee, UK

Juried exhibitions

2014           National Original Print Exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, UK

                    RWS Watercolour Competition, Bankside Gallery, London, UK

                    Macmillan Exhibition, Bonhams, Edinburgh, UK

2013           David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year, Mall Galleries, London, UK

                    RI Annual exhibition, Bankside Gallery, London, UK

                    RSW Annual exhibition, RSA Galleries, Edinburgh, UK

                    Macmillan Art of Nature exhibition, Bonhams, Edinburgh, UK

2012           NOAC, Chichester and London, UK

                    David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year, Mall Galleries, London, UK

                    EWA Award, London, UK

                    Neo Print Prize Exhibition, Bolton, UK

                    MIWAS Exhibition, Rookesbury Park Manor, Hants, UK

Media coverage

2019          Short TV documentary, CBC Arts: Exhibitionists, CBC, Canada

                   Short TV documentary, CBC Arts: Exhibitionists, CBC, CanadaRadio interview, You Look Fine, IMCA Raydeeoh,                              Montreal, Canada

2018           TV interview, CBC Alberta, Canada

Presentations

2019           Not Yet Earth: Breaking Down the Body Through Print, Rocky Mountain Print Alliance Symposium, University                                of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

                    Breaking Down the Body Through Print, AUARTS Faculty Research Symposium, Alberta University of the Arts,                                Calgary, Canada

                    Not Yet Earth, artist talk, Martha Street Studio Gallery, Winnipeg

2018           Not Yet Earth: Breaking Down the Body Through Print, Impact 10 printmaking conference, Santander, Spain

                    Not Yet Earth: The Edges of the Body, ARTiculations Speaker Series, University of Alberta

2016           Artist talk, FGSR Showcase, University of Alberta

Collections

2019           Cork Printmakers collection, Cork, Ireland

                    UBCO Teaching Collection, Kelowna, Canada

2018           SGCI Archives, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA, USA

2016-18      University of Alberta Art collections, Edmonton, Canada

2014           Northlands Creative Glass Collection, Lybster, UK

2013           RSA collections, Edinburgh, UK

Residencies

2019           Cork Printmakers, 4 weeks, Cork, Ireland

                    University of British Columbia Okanagan Print Department, 2 weeks, Kelowna, BC Canada

2014           Sambaa K’e Print Workshop, 4 months, Sambaa K’e, NWT, Canada

                    University of Alberta Print Department, 10 days, Edmonton, AB, Canada

2013           A Forest of Glass, Northlands Creative Glass and Borgie Forest Cabin Project, 8 weeks, Caithness and                                            Sutherland, UK

2012           Aland Archipelago Guest Artist Residence, 6 weeks, Aland Archipelago, Finland

                    WPA trek, Timothy Greenwood Award, 2 weeks, Annapurna foothills, Nepal

Public artworks

2011           Public artwork for the Woodland Trust at the Moncrieff Woodland Sculpture Trail, Perth, UK