About Alexander
As an artist, I am at least as interested in what is not seen and not heard, as in as what is seen. Over the years I continually come back to the simplicity of a single object, a still life, an invented still life as the portal to the whole, beyond the image. I have chosen painting as a place to share the transcendent. I believe that colour, movement within colour, an incidental mark, are the footprints of the spiritual. Whilst I could never be accused of being religious, I have been a lifelong friend of the numenous. My paintings are as close to me as my dearest friends and I share them with you as I might share a secret. They are deeply personal, full of fun and frenzy, and are the métier of intimacy as I understand it.
Biography
Alexander has been a painter forever.
He ran his solo exhibition at 18 in his home town of Derry in Northern Ireland at a wee gallery there in the Diamond.
He went on to study Art at Goldsmiths College University of London. After a varied career as a leading pioneer in working with the arts in business, particularly recognised for his work in the use of storytelling as a tool for learning and development in organizations. Alexander combined his early careers in education and social work with his business consultancy learning and created a dynamic experiential approach within the world of corporate leadership development, enabling imaginative thinking and person centred innovation.
However, he continued to yearn for art to be at the front and centre of his life, and
he he turned to an MA in Fine Art at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design in 2013.
This was highly experiential and based on the continual assessment of self and peers through the contemporary lens of current practice in the visual arts. True to form, Alexander chose painting as his preferred medium and undertook many visits to current exhibitions, weekly assessment of practice within a peer group and writing related essays on the the theme of painting for which he was awarded a distinction.
More recently he has completed an MA in Illustration at Edinburgh College of Art, where in 2021 he passed with distinction. Here he discovered more of the limitless language of images to complement the words of the narrative, which he's explored further in the various illustrated books that he has created.
Throughout his artistic life he exhibited rarely, preferring his own artistic company and researching creativity as an independent consultant and Director at Cranfield Business School. In 1998 he was made a life fellow in the prestigious Winston Churchill Society for his research into bridging ancient storytelling practice with modern organisational leadership which he undertook with the Aborigines of Middle Australia. He was was offered another Fellowship by the Royal Society of Arts, where in 2016 he was invited to join the FRSA, in recognition of his work with developing artistic practice within an organisational context.
As he approaches this time as an elder, he has taken the innovative opportunity to step out into the world of art exhibitions and his scant resume does very poor justice to his life as an artist but it is what it is.
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Artist Resume
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Alexander Mackenzie
Born in 1960 in Tralee, Ireland
Resides and works in Edinburgh, Scotland
Selected exhibitions:
2024 'Awakening' (solo exhibition), Music House Gallery, Huis ter Heide, Holland
English Riviera Open (group exhibition), Torquay, England
2019 ‘Humbert Bear Likes to Doze' (permanent exhibition), Helen & Douglas House Children's Hospice, Oxford, England
2018 Summerhall Artists Collective (group exhibition), Edinburgh, Scotland
2017 ‘Art of the Invisible’ (solo exhibition), Summerhall, Edinburgh, Scotland
2013 ‘In the Family of Things’ (solo exhibition), Palais de la Cour de Justice, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Birmingham Institute of Art and Design Show (group exhibition), Birmingham, England
2012 ‘Red’ (group exhibition), Open Studios Albion Road, Edinburgh, Scotland
2010 ‘Gathering’ (group exhibition), The Gallery Nailsworth, Stroud, England
2009 ‘Eclipse’ (solo exhibition), The Gallery Nailsworth, Stroud, United Kingdom
2004 ‘Still Life’ (solo exhibition), Ruskin Gallery, Stroud, United Kingdom
1977 'Irish Landscape' (solo exhibition), Diamond Gallery, Derry, Northern Ireland
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Education/training:
1979-1980: Art and Design Foundation Diploma, Goldsmiths College, London, England
2012-2013: MA Fine Art, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham, England
2019-2021: MA Illustration, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, Scotland
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Selected press:
Alexander Mackenzie, “The Art of Contemplation” in Developing Leaders Quarterly (2024).
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Fellowships:
1998 Winston Churchill Society
2016 Fellowship by the Royal Society of Arts
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