Mackenzie, Edward

Statement

I’ve been an artist for most of my adult life interspersed with periods of paid employment, mostly teaching. 

I was trained at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City.  After art school I did a little design and illustration work, quite quickly morphing into a fine artist.  At art school I related more to beautiful oil paint tubes than to their contents and what that medium produced. 

I was fortunate to receive a Fulbright Scholarship seconded for two years to The Royal College of Art, the beginning a long association with the land of my father.

While I do some drawing and less painting and collage, I function first and foremost as an assemblagist.  I have always loved and collected 2-D and 3-D ‘treasures’, which collections are the grist to the mill of my assemblages.

Besides objects, I am motivated and inspired by aesthetics – the beauty of art, ideas, and by other artists.

Besides making art in England, I have worked and exhibited widely in the USA and New Zealand.

“Edward Mackenzie calls himself an ‘Assemblagist.’  His work is nothing less than the ‘alchemy of transformation.’  Just as his glue bonds the components, so do his ideas hold his art together.  Each piece is strong with the cohesion of his experience, interest and imagination, and that makes him eminently accessible.”   

Robbins, Don ‘Out of the Blue’

Find out more about Edward’s artwork by visiting his website