Living and working on the Isle of Skye, the printmaker Tom MacKenzie is renowned for his colour etchings of the island and the West Coast of Scotland. The visual richness of Skye – the jagged coastlines and monolithic rock formations; the wild island sea and the haunting misty air – gave MacKenzie enough research that would sustain his artistic career spanning many years.
Within his work, MacKenzie strives for simple and harmonious compositions but these are often hard-won; plates are often worked and reworked before he achieves a satisfying result.
There are moments of vigorous mark-making in his prints, but also delicate handling as he draws the ripple of a wave or the gradation of light on a loch’s surface. He explores the land’s changes faces, its beauty, grandeur, desolation and power.