Andrew McIntosh was born in Grantown On Spey in the Highlands of Scotland in 1979. Following studies at Edinburgh’s Telford College 1997-99, he held his first solo exhibition at the Highland Mori museum in 2001. Since then he has exhibited widely across the UK, including at the Carnegie Club at Skibo castle in Sutherland, and the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London. In 2014 he won the Towry Award for Best in Show at the National Open Art Competition at Somerset House in London, and was shortlisted for the John Moores Painting Prize at the Walker Art Museum in Liverpool, as well as being selected to exhibit in Here Today in London, curated by Artwise. Following his solo exhibition 'You Were Shit in the 80s' at James Freeman Gallery in 2015, his large painting 'RA!' was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 2016, and he was nominated for the Pulse Art Prize in Miami 2016. Collections include Simmons & Simmons; The Ivy; Vanessa Branson (founder of the Marrakech Biennale); and Mr & Mrs Barney Moores (family of John Moores).
Mackie paints ethereal landscapes populated by isolated ageing buildings. But inside these structures, delicately and minutely reproduced, are some of the most iconic works from Modern and contemporary art. Each relates to an artist argument; each is the fruit of friction. One pair of paintings references the long-standing friendship between Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon that deteriorated into a spiteful tit-for-tat. Freud's 1989 “Standing by the Rags” appears in a crumbling Victorian building in Toxteth; Bacon's “Second Version of Triptych 1944” occupies an abandoned asylum near Glasgow.
Similarly with the press spat ahead of David Hockney's 2012 Royal Academy show, when he referred to Damien Hirst's work as “insulting to skilful craftsmen”. Hockney's “Portrait of Nick Wilder” hangs in the upper floors of the deserted Pennine Tower at Lancaster Service Station, while Hirst's shark sits screaming inside a padded room within an isolated country barn.
Each Master holds his own court, but the audience is curiously absent. This, in combination with Mackie's settings, lends a Gothic curiosity to the work. His decaying architectural behemoths and empty landscapes have an after-the-deluge feel, as if these masterpieces were nostalgic documents of a time when cultural creativity was abundant. Mackie's trick of revealing them by removing a panel from the face of the building also prompts a host of questions: what kind of collector uses these oversized doll's houses for their art? Who is the intended audience in this post-creative world? And quite how far away might we be from this creative dystopia right now?
Born The Highlands, Scotland, 1979. Lives and works in London.
Solo Shows
October 2017 – “The Things i’ll Give to you” Beaux Arts London
December 2016 – “Where we Belong” Bo.Lee Gallery at Pulse Miami
October 2016 – “We Were the Coca Cola” James Freeman Gallery, London
March 2015 – “You Were Shit in the 80’s” The James Freeman Gallery, London
April 2012 – Hayhill Gallery, Cork Street, London
Selected Group Shows
2018
Just Putting It Out There, James Freeman Gallery, London
2017
Come Rain, Come Shine – Beaux Arts London
Anniversary @ Saul Hay Gallery
Traces – Bo.Lee Gallery @ Bo.Lee HQ
New Topographies @ Saul Hay Gallery
Lapada with Beaux Arts London
2016
Petrichor – Bo.Lee Gallery @ Greek Street
The National Open Art Competition, Mercers Hall, London
Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London
Bo.Lee Gallery @ Art16, Olympia, London Mono no aware @ Bo.Lee Gallery HQ
Silk @ James Freeman Gallery, London
Bo.Lee Gallery @ London Art Fair
2015
Art on a Postcard, Soho Revue, London
The National Open Art Competition, Royal College of Art, London
Abditory @ Bo.Lee Gallery, Dulwich, London
The Royal Academy Arts Summer Exhibition, London
James Freeman Gallery at the Ivy Club, London Book Fair, Olympia
2014
Here Today… The Old Sorting Office, London, W1
Miniare @ Bo.Lee Gallery, The Crate, Notting Hill, London
The James Freeman Gallery, Upper Street, London
The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, London
Caiger Contemporary Art, Battersea, London
The Hayhill Gallery, Baker Street, London
2013
The Hayhill Gallery, Baker Street, London
Eton Contemporary Art Gallery
2012-2006
Hayhill Gallery, Cork Street, London
The Carnegie Club (landscapes)
The House of Bruar (landscapes)
Highland Mori Museum (landscapes)
Collections
Simmons Contemporary
Mr and Mrs Barney Moores
Vanessa Branson
The Ivy (London)
Awards & Nominations
2016 December – Pulse Prize Nominee – Miami
2016 January – W. Gordon Smith Award contestant – Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh
2014 The Towry Award for best in show at The National Open Art Competition
2014 John Moores Painting Prize 2014 contestant – Walker Gallery, Liverpool
2014 Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize contestant – Mall Galleries, London
Publications
Blood on the Canvas, Jonathan Jones in The Guardian, 12/3/15
Artrend, 20 Minutos, Spain, 17/3/15
AN Magazine Review by Antonia Jackson, March 2015
Feud for Thought - Islington Tribune, feature by Amy Smith, 6/3/15
Rooms Magazine- The Coming Of The Other- July 2014
About Art And Design – Abandoned Dollhouses – March 2014
Weheart – From A Box Of Toys To A His Latest Paintings – October 2013
Creative Boom – Abandoned Dollhouses – October 2013
N-Ger-Land: More Mackie! – T’arthead – November 2012
What A Beast, What A Man! Mackie, Artist – T’arthead – April 2012