ARTIST INFORMATION / RACHEL MACKAY
Rachel Mackay (b.1988, London) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Sydney/Eora. Incorporating drawing, painting, performance, and video, Rachel’s practice explores the fluid and dynamic relationships between humans, their bodies, and their environments. Drawing on her background as a former competitive gymnast, Rachel treats the canvas as a stage, where the camera is often her primary audience. Through a process-based and performative approach, she interrogates the role of movement and embodied experience as a relational process, in which bodies and environments interact and mutually shape one another.
Rachel’s work has been exhibited in various galleries and was selected as a finalist for the Mosman Art Prize in 2022. She is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Art at the National Art School in Sydney.
CATALOGUE / RACHEL MACKAY ‘TEMPORAL GESTURES’
Rachel Mackay’s Temporal Gestures is a body of work that exposes the abstract nature of time and creates a dialogue between its linear tempo and the movement of the human body within it.
Mackay’s practice of contemporary performance drawing, captures deeply expressive marks over periods of time. Using the canvas as a stage for the artists motions, the performance is immortalised and the pieces continue to belong in the fleetingness of the creation while simultaneously are eternally in the present.
The complexity in line throughout the works serves as a marker of time, carrying implicit human presence and temporal nuances. It encompasses both the brief and prolonged, the fast and slow moments that shape our existence.
Mapping and marking the body in motion, Mackay explores the ephemeral nature of human existence - revealing it as a transient place of passage. Within this body of work, Mackay combats the infinite rhythm of time, memorialising her own body and its Temporal Gestures.
- Words by Venn Miles, HAKE.
RACHEL MACKAY / SOLO EXHIBITION
"Temporal Gestures" explores the relationship between the body, movement and time. The work bridges the abstract nature of time with tangible qualities of human experience.
Drawing inspiration from contemporary performance drawing, the work uses action and time as materials, with the canvas becoming a stage for corporeal movement. By recording movement onto the canvas, I navigate the interplay between action, time, and mark-making. Mapping the body in action reveals its ephemeral nature as a transient space of passage. Through the correlation of movement and mark-making, I aim to encapsulate the visceral body within the flow of time.
The line serves as both a visual element and a temporal marker, representing the implicit body and carrying the nuances of time. It encapsulates the short and long, fast and slow moments that shape our existence. The performed gesture becomes a conduit for capturing the essence of the moment, merging physicality and presence within the passage of time.” - Rachel Mackay
Location | HAKE, House Of Art 1/275 Harbord Road, Dee Why.
Rachel Mackay solo exhibition 'Temporal gestures’ was on view from the 26th May - 16th June 2023.