“I’ve arrived at what I perceive as a half way point in my life and career. This exhibition is somewhat representative of an auto biographical assessment of mid life and mid career. Reflecting on the achievement and challenges of the past, but looking forward with excitement to the next stage and the coming years”

“A change of studio and a move to the country led me to be somewhat more reflective and introverted in these new paintings. The new space allowed me to sink into the work free of distractions and noise of the city.

At times the change felt a little isolating, but I soon found it was actually a Paradise of the exiled”

“I sought to search within myself to find the origin of my own creativity. In a year without travel, my usual practice of gathering visual and symbolic material was out of the question due to global issues. I found myself spending more time in the studio, looking at sketchbooks, reflecting on my creative journey, revisiting familiar ideas and trying to find the true source of my inspiration and building a solid show from this”

Early in 2020 Mckenzie flew to Morocco to rest, re-invigorate and re-inspire himself with a change of landscape and surrounds. The famous gardens of Marrakesh were his destination – places that he hoped would provide him with inspiration for the series of works that he was intending to make.

As it turned out, the idea of escaping to an imagined and idealised place took on a new and much more loaded meaning for Mckenzie as COVID-19 broke out just as he returned to Australia. The apprehension and experience of this new pandemic-struck world meant Mckenzie’s journeys in Morocco became more Arcadian, more symbolic, and more meaningful, as he recalled this time before the virus that has come to define this year.

Making the paintings allowed him to return again and again, not only to the gardens and landscape of palms and pools, vast skies and the warm brickwork all painted up in Marrakesh red, but to a state of mind free from the thoughts of 2020.

These works re-interpret the gardens of the Koutoubia, the Menara, la Mamounia and Jacques Majorelle.

Mckenzie love’s the infinite variety of palms and cactus, the juxtaposition of the wild and the manicured, and the constant changing colours of the Morroccan landscape. As Mckenzie is painting them, he is transported. He can, at least in his mind, escape to the Palmeraie.

NIWA, being the Japanese word for “garden” is Mckenzie’s current collection. Featuring a 5 panel work, spanning over 7 metres, this work is the focal point of this show, exploring the idea of multiple pathways and destinations within the painting symbolising the multiple destinations and pathways in one’s own life. This theme continues through the other works in the show and sees the introduction of the palm tree in Mckenzie’s work and a lighter palette

This exhibition follows a major survey show of the artists work at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, and see’s Mckenzie revisiting his central themes based around water as a metaphor and the central themes of journey and renewal

“Water has been a constant inspiration for my work. So often throughout my travels I have been reminded of it’s cultural importance, it’s symbolism, it’s use in ceremony and religion, and it’s absolute essential and life giving role. Pictorially it allows me to play with colours, light and composition.

Sometimes when composing a new painting I design a new landscape and then flood the scene with water elevating the arrangement and completing the composition”

HazelHurst Regional Gallery and art centre hosts this major survey exhibition of Alexander Mckenzie, one of Australia's most renowned and recognisable landscape painters. This exhibition showcases works from the last 30 years and coincides with a new publication about the artists life and work. 

The centrepiece of this exhibition is a large new painting “More than many sparrows” that was made specifically for the show. The “Adventurous Gardener” was viewed by some 25,000 people and proved to be one of Hazelhurst regional gallery’s most popular shows.

This exhibition follows Alexander Mckenzie’s recent travels to Italy and focuses particularly on the work of British Garden designer Russell Page.

Mckenzie was highly influenced by the modernist formality of the British designers work in Europe and many of Page’s signature design elements are referenced in the paintings.

“I travelled specifically to view “Pages’ work in Italy, taking my cues for compositions and arrangements within the gardens and incorporating them into my own pictures”

The paintings in this exhibition directly reference the famous garden of the Katsura Imperial villa near Kyoto, Japan. Many of the gardens symbolic ideas are explored within the paintings.

“I spent a good deal of time in the garden at Katsura, sketching and observing, taking hundreds of visual notes about the shapes and arrangement of space that is so fundamental to this type of Japanese stroll garden”

The ideas and symbolic narrative that form the basis of Edo Period Japanese Gardens are the starting point for this series of paintings. Following an anti clockwise direction, the viewer is led through the paintings encountering obsticals and symbols that are designed to reflect an individuals life, both spiritual and temporal, as was done in traditional Edo Period garden design.

“Japan has always been an inspiration place for me, the beautiful, elegant aesthetic I’ve sought to represent in these new paintings”

“The scottish word for ‘Anchorage’ or ‘Harbour’ , Acarsaid is a group of new paintings where I have thought about trying to find my own place, my own anchor-seat. Exploring this theme led me to make paintings that illustrated my ideas around my own identity. As a child of Scottish Gaelic sailors, the search for safe harbour has remained constant and unchanging”

“A Cairn is a manmade pile of stones and can have multiple purposes. Most importantly it can mark a boundary, or act as a memorial. They exist to remind people of another person or of an event. I look for cairns in my life as an artist, searching for markers, signposts and memorials to point the way and define the outlines of my life. These new works see me questioning and searching for these stones”