the speed of light and dark - hugo michell gallery · 2015-04-30 · 70 the speed of light and dark...

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The Speed of Light and DarkThe paintings of William Mackinnon

by Alex Weinstein photography by Willem-Dirk du Toit

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Shoreham, Autumn6' x 12' Oil on synthetic linen2013

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of our imaginations. So while there is pictorial absence�—blankness, depth, openness, what painters call �“negative space�”�—this is also fertile acreage for great emotional density. The viewer can�’t help but load the space with content, expectation, and possibility. By contrast, in brighter pictures cast in daylight, Mackinnon delights in exhibiting what lies at the end of his rainbows: waves and surf spots, just beyond reach, behind trees, over hills, mighty and majestic. Immense swells loom in monolithic arcs recalling Hokusai�’s brilliant woodcuts. Verdant hills and valleys ecked with light undulate in and out of shadow, not unlike the sea itself, sometimes pictured in the distance. In the sur ng paintings, the great expanse of the ocean (often rendered in stunning, curdled pools of poured pigments, surfers bobbing) quickly replaces the blackness seen in the road paintings as a cauldron of possibility. Vistas are perceivable here but this is the ocean, with its own mysterious territory, moods, and forces. And as all surfers know, once you are out there anything can happen. These are key players in Mackinnon�’s output. His pictures read beautifully as maps of speci c places and actual experiences, but they also speak so clearly to the universality of travel itself with its con icting emotions, drama, and surprise. To move into the world is to nd oneself elsewhere, rede ned perhaps, by a new setting or a new set of circumstances. This is the backbone of travel and adventure, and a wellspring for Mackinnon�’s imagery. He also courts this investigation and its potential prizes (and pitfalls) by taking risks with his compositions and handling his materials loosely. After all, the process of creating the painting is as much a journey as anything and Mackinnon clearly likes to go places. His paintwork recalls the fast and furious additive technique of current Euro uber-künstlers Peter Doig and Daniel Richter. There�’s also a joie de vivre in Mackinnon�’s color, however, that smacks more lovingly of David Hockney or even Henri Matisse. All are artists who�’ve sought to advance their craft in terms personal and historical and, here again, Mackinnon is ghting the good ght. He�’s done the reading and wrung his hands in the miasma of heady critical theory: studying in London (a bristling art world capital) and completing a residency at th e Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, (an American Mecca for the worship of Minimalism). But these scholarly experiences inform the work quietly. Mackinnon has an obvious gift for grand presentation and clearly wishes the work to speak for itself.

William Mackinnon�’s landscape paintings portray the Australian terrain and the road laid upon it with ebullience, wonder, whispers �—and even terror. The artist makes paintings

you can almost inhabit. His visions of the rural parcels around Melbourne capture the vastness of his domain in manners both terrestrial and emotional. But movement and displacement abound in his pictures too, conveying temporal urgency with stunning e ect. In day-lit, long-range views of wooded cli s along the sea, and racy snapshots from nocturnal car rides wrought with dazzling, painterly invention and compositional risk, Mackinnon suggests the notion that the extraordinary abounds in the mundane and that the search for a perfect wave is not unlike the struggle to make a perfect work of art. In Shoreham (previous spread), imposing forests occlude the vista of a distant and lonesome cove ecked with hooded surfers waiting for sets. The e ect is both resplendent and chilling. In another work, Crossroads (following spread), headlights illuminate a solitary house poised inches from a lost highway in an instant of hysterical oddness. This looming structure, with Christmas lights dangling pell-mell, battered fence posts, and a sad, leaning tree, comes into garish focus across the windshield of the car you, the viewer, are driving. Con icting, loaded messages abound here: Is this a place to rest? Is this a place to die? Menace and welcome are delivered in equal measure�—as are light and darkness. Strange things happen in the dark and it�’s this element that Mackinnon allows real primacy in many of his best paintings. In his landscapes, blackened areas abound, often dominating his compositions and o ering juicy counterpunches to the light- lled and boisterous passages where content is visible and real. In the blast of his headlights, the road dazzles with re ective markers, swooping passing-lane stripes, and glowing panels with arrows indicating a hard left turn to come. But beyond that, beyond the turn, utter blackness, The Void, inky, fathomless expanses. It becomes clear, however, that these blackened elds are not really empty at all. Instead, Mackinnon�’s �“empty�” spaces behave with all the fecund possibility that the imagination dares to ignite�—of bounty, of menace. Look into the dark spaces and there is nothing to �“see�” there, nothing is rendered, and yet all is perceptible. The dark stares right back at us, pregnant with the scary renderings

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“It’s hard to describe how much painting is intrinsically part of me,” says Mackinnon.

“It’s a compulsion. It’s how I see the world and think about it. It’s a very personal thing. But I also hope it communicates something to other people about my sensibility and what it feels like to be alive. Painting in general is a long, slow conversation with yourself and all the art that has gone before and my intention is to hopefully one day add to the canon.”



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Crossroads5' x 6.5'Acrylic, oil, and automotive enamel on synthetic linen2014

Brothers 3' x 2' Acrylic on linen2013


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“Surfi ng is the perfect counterbalance to the art world,” says Mackinnon. “I love driving down the coast and clearing my head. I depend on the release and balance it gives my life.”



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Green Wave4.5' x 6.5' Oil and enamel on canvas2013



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the speed of light and dark - hugo michell gallery · 2015-04-30 · 70 the speed of light and dark...

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