The Blue Studio
Donald MacKenzie - artist

Donald MacKenzie's somewhat fearsome scowl breaks into a broad smile of welcome as I enter his studio - the scowl was concentration - and the talk flows easily.

Many years' absence from his native island have given this Skyeman a quirky perspective on life, art and his surroundings. Here is no other-worldly introspection, for which 'arty' people have an oft-deserved reputation. Donald's is a quiet passion for where he is and what he does, along with a gentle humour that finds its way into his paintings and is his personal comment on humanity's place in the natural landscape.

He went to primary school in Staffin in the north of the island, followed by Portree High School and Duncan of Jordanston College of Art in Dundee from 1963 to 1968. Time spent in London, Paris, Edinburgh, Dundee and Angus was followed by 10 years in Strath Tummel in Perthshire - which, he says, has everything but the sea - and finally the return to Skye.

It is clear from the work on display that where he is influences what he paints. Donald describes himself as a "neighbourhood painter". Living in the landscape of his raw material is important, and the view from his studio is the basis of many of his pictures. It's quite a view, over the township of Tarskavaig and the wide sweep of the bay beyond. He says he needs to absorb a landscape before he can create from it. The more dramatic the landscape, the slower the process and whilst a magnificent landscape opens up immense opportunities, it also causes problems.

Any artist in Skye faces the difficulty of matching the reality of a landscape that is visually so challenging. Donald feels that an extraordinary place like Skye deserves more than ordinary, undemanding pictures, of which there were (and are) too many.

He has his own idiosyncratic solution. He places unexpected figures in his paintings. For many years these were musicians, especially fiddlers (he plays the fiddle himself), and one of his most well-known paintings is based on an old fiddle tune, The Hens' March to the Midden.

More recently, figures with shopping trolleys have appeared on the scene. Meeting a man wheeling a shopping trolley through a Skye woodland, Donald was left with a mental image that developed into a series of paintings, placing our consumer society in Skye's extraordinary landscape.

Shopping trolleys on Tarskavaig beach is certainly an unexpected portrayal of the artist's daily view. But these trolleys don't depict the harshness of wasteful decay. They are not abandoned and littering the shore. They are still in service but have escaped, along with their human "minders", from their conventional supermarket-concrete environment into the landscape that surrounds it. As social commentary, it is whimsical and compassionate rather than forceful or angry. It is a gentle reminder of the reality that inhabits the island alongside its renowned scenic beauty.

You sense that Donald is painting for himself rather than with a market in mind, and he agrees. All his paintings take a long time. He allows his work to develop along its own lines and he sees change as vital to both work and artist.

The idea of change crops up frequently during our conversation - the ever-changing island light, the colours of the sea, his own need to change. Although a successful exhibitor for many years in galleries around the country, with work still on display in Glasgow and Dundee, Donald found that galleries prefer an artist to have a recognisable (and marketable) "style", whereas the artist needs to grow and move on continually. He finally opened his own gallery - the Blue Studio - in 2003. "It's wonderful", he says. Taking total responsibility for himself and his work has given Donald the freedom he sought and he is clearly relishing the experience.

You can see Donald's work at:
www.mac-art.org

If you wish to use any of my photographs for publication, please contact me. Commissions for similar illustrated features are welcome - contact me any time to discuss your ideas.