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2 Herald St
E2 6JT
United Kingdom

+44 20 7168 2566

Contemporary art gallery in Bethnal Green, London. Representing artists Markus Amm, Alexandra Bircken, Josh Brand, Pablo Bronstein, Peter Coffin, Matt Connors, Matthew Darbyshire, Michael Dean, Ida Ekblad, Annette Kelm, Scott King, Cary Kwok, Christina Mackie, Djordje Ozbolt, Oliver Payne, Oliver Payne & Nick Relph, Amalia Pica, Nick Relph, Tony Swain, Donald Urquhart, Klaus Weber, and Nicole Wermers.

Christina Mackie

Herald St | 2 Herald St, London, E2 6JT

28th June – 16th September 2023

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Herald St is delighted to announce an exhibition of works by Christina Mackie, taking place in the gallery’s East London premises. The presentation features a continuation of Mackie’s ceramic wall sculptures titled Tokens, as well as a new series of watercolours inspired by modern container terminals, titled Seaports. These distinct bodies of work demonstrate the artist’s multidisciplinary engagement with colour and material, which began over four decades ago. Through pigments, earthenware, slips, glazes, and an array of fabrics, she investigates the physical and chemical properties of her mediums, and simultaneously exposes their arresting emotive impact.

Token 31

2020

Earthenware, fabric, wheat

59 x 30 x 8.2 cm / 23.2 x 11.8 x 3.2 in

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Token 32

2020

Earthenware, wheat, silk

37.5 x 25 x 10.5 cm / 14.8 x 9.8 x 4.1 in

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Token 30

2020

Earthenware, fabric, barley

58 x 32 x 5.8 cm / 22.8 x 12.6 x 2.3 in

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The exhibition debuts Mackie’s new paintings, her largest watercolours to date. In these tableaux, inky swathes of deep colour envelope delicate structures which emerge in ghostly white. Straddling the line between visual likeness and abstraction, the opalescent shapes capture the essence of loading cranes viewed from the artist’s home by the river deltas of Vancouver. Within this scene, the sharp geometries of electric machinery and yellow goods rise against misty wetland fogs, embodying a dichotomy of artifice and nature inherent in her practice. Born in England, Mackie was raised in Canada in a family of marine biologists, and her early exposure to scientific methodology has informed her artistic output. In describing the compositions of her Seaports, she meticulously lists their chroma and nomenclature: raw sienna, burnt umber, cobalt violet, manganese, gamboge, ultramarine, Payne’s grey, indigo, viridian. She draws attention to the physicality of colour within her work, with pigments mostly derived from earthy and mineral compounds – as notably explored in her monumental installation for Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries in 2015. At the same time, the watercolours are borne from intuitive gesture open to uncontrollable puddles and splashes of wet paint. Mackie’s Seaports also nod to their canonical genre, a contemporary answer to Dutch marine paintings of the seventeenth century. Loaded with nostalgia, her renderings continue the endlessly captivating tensions between human innovations and the majesty of nature.

Seaport 15

2023

Watercolour on paper

115 x 96.5 x 5 cm / 45.3 x 38 x 2 in, framed

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Seaport 10

2023

Watercolour on paper

115 x 97 x 5 cm / 45.3 x 38.2 x 2 in, framed

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Token 29

2020

Earthenware, rag rope

72 x 24.5 x 4.5 cm / 28.3 x 9.6 x 1.8 in

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Token 24

2020

Earthenware, silk

30 x 37 x 5.5 cm / 11.8 x 14.6 x 2.2 in 

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Token 45

2022

Earthenware, plastics, pigments, silk, paper

75.5 x 33 x 8.5 cm / 29.7 x 13 x 3.3 in

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Token 41

2020

Earthenware, rope, cable ties, leather

45 x 41 x 10 cm / 17.7 x 16.1 x 3.9 in

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Token 44

2020

Earthenware, Egyptian paste, seeds, silk, glass

83 x 25 x 4.3 cm / 32.7 x 9.8 x 1.7 in

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Token 25

2020

Earthenware, silk

29.5 x 25 x 8 cm / 11.6 x 9.8 x 3.5 in 

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Mackie’s Tokens are vibrant and haptic ceramics mounted on the wall or gently suspended on thick loops of velvet, cotton, and other materials. In conceiving these sculptures, the artist looked to objects and concepts which stand in for an outside idea, emotion, or relationship – a symbolic emblem often belying insincerity. Her inspirations ranged from the aesthetics of seals, badges, and medals to markers and behaviours in contemporary society: social media ‘likes’, endorsements, and virtue signalling. As with the watercolour pigments, the clay and glazes are extracted from the earth and inextricably linked to a particular geography, and these elemental mediums are juxtaposed with manmade fabrics which act as embellishments and hanging mechanisms. Fired to alchemical effect, her process is at once reminiscent of laboratory procedures and left to the fortuitous effects of the material’s crystallisation in the kiln. The sculptures recall Mackie’s series of Judges, anchored by clay shapes formed by chance which took on anthropomorphic and oppressive qualities. Her statement at the time of creating this seminal earlier work, over ten years ago, could still apply for the Tokens: ‘I do use materials that I consider to be beautiful or elegant but the work is dark. The real shape of the world we’re living in is what a lot of the work is about.’

Token 26

2020

Earthenware, silk

26 x 27 x 6 cm / 10.2 x 10.6 x 2.4 in 

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Token 33

2019

Earthenware, resin, silk

34 x 25.5 x 4.3 cm / 13.4 x 10 x 1.7 in

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Token 34

2019

Earthenware, resin, fabrics

39 x 24 x 8 cm / 15.4 x 9.4 x 3.1 in

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Mackie’s Seaports and Tokens are immediately beguiling, executed in jewel tones, calligraphic washes, and glistening glazes. Both series are built on layers: physical stacks of thin plates of clay and pools of pigments, and conceptual interplays of motives and histories. The artist compares such complexities in her works to the layers found in other mediums such as softwares and films, as well as the inevitable layers of existence. The Seaports and Tokens carry microcosms of gestures from life, filled with the tensions of nature against artifice, intention against chance, and the scientific-objective against sentimental intuition.

Text by Émilie Streiff

Seaport 14

2023

Watercolour on paper

117 x 100.5 x 5 cm / 46.1 x 39.6 x 2 in, framed

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Seaport 13

2023

Watercolour on paper

117 x 99.5 x 5 cm / 46.1 x 39.2 x 2 in, framed

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Token 46

2020

Earthenware, silk

52 x 29 x 9 cm / 20.5 x 11.4 x 3.5 in

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Token 47

2020

Earthenware, silk

28.5 x 41.7 x 10 cm / 11.2 x 16.4 x 3.9 in

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Token 23

2020

Earthenware, silk

49 x 28 x 9 cm / 19.3 x 11 x 3.5 in 

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Seaport 12

2023

Watercolour on paper

115 x 100.5 x 5 cm / 45.3 x 39.6 x 2 in, framed

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Seaport 11

2023

Watercolour on paper

115 x 93 x 5 cm / 45.3 x 36.6 x 2 in, framed

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Token 40

2019

Earthenware, rope

28 x 51 x 6 cm / 11 x 20.1 x 2.4 in

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Token 38

2020

Earthenware, resin

26 x 27 x 6 cm / 10.2 x 10.6 x 2.4 in

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Token 36

2020

Earthenware, resin, plastic

81 x 31 x 6.5 cm / 31.9 x 12.2 x 2.6 in

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Token 37

2020

Earthenware, silk

32 x 33 x 8 cm / 12.6 x 13 x 3.1 in

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Token 28

2020

Earthenware, silk

72 x 31 x 8.5 cm / 28.3 x 12.2 x 3.5 in 

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Token 39

2020

Earthenware, silk

23.5 x 24.5 x 4 cm / 9.3 x 9.6 x 1.6 in

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Token 42

2020

Earthenware and silk

53.5 x 30 x 9 cm / 21.1 x 11.8 x 3.5 in

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