14 x 20 cm | 5 x 7 in
Subject: Abstract
Tags: Emergence, Branches, Purple
Original painting in oil on wood panel.
Materials used: Oil on wooden panel
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Ted McKenzie's abstract paintings from his BA Fine Art degree are meditative explorations that strive to uncover the fundamental truths underlying reality. His modest canvases bear the evidence of a meticulous, constructive process - each one worked on over several months alongside others in his studio.
McKenzie rejects literal representation, instead building up abstract compositions through the careful placement of coloured shapes and forms. There is a poetry to his arrangements of line, colour and texture that resonates with lived experience, each piece arriving at a "mysterious resemblance" to some elusive aspect of the world.
The surfaces are well-worked, rugged accretions that materialise slowly, guided by the artist's innate sensitivity to the formal language of painting. McKenzie's abstract imagery is not quickly rendered but painstakingly uncovered through his mediative approach, each mark and layer a step towards revealing the hidden, perhaps incomprehensible forces that govern our reality.
Like Gerhard Richter, one of the most influential abstract painters of our time, McKenzie sees his non-representational works as "fictitious models" that "visualise a reality which we can neither see nor describe but which we nevertheless conclude exists." Richter believed "abstract painting illustrates with the greatest clarity" our attempts to approach and represent deeper truths about the world that cannot be directly perceived or understood.
While expressive, McKenzie's constructive process eschews overt symbolism or narrative in favour of a direct, clear expression of form. His abstract canvases do not depict but rather aim to grasp the essence of the world through the fundamental poetry of painting itself - a search for truth through an alternative visual language that resonates with Richter's own philosophy.