Theo Mackenzie (b. 1998, London) works in painting, sculpture, and most frequently at the intersection between these two disciplines. His practice is particularly interested in the surreal, the dramatic, and the precarious, descriptions he feels pertain to life of an early-career artist.

Mackenzie’s narratives are a studied blend of fiction and reality; the referential allusions and mischievous use of pastiche, irony, and self-questioning in his works are a way of magnifying these narratives towards a point of grandiosity. Ridicule reformulated as sincerity, simultaneously zany and solemn.

The Flood (Tears) was originally presented at Mackenzie’s degree show as part of an installation, the seascape presented on the table on which it
was produced and the ‘creator’s’ working detritus. It demonstrates the omniscience, gloom, and humour so often seen in his work, but the narrative remains the preserve of its creator.

Mackenzie’s work has been exhibited in Autoluminescent (2022, St Giles Cripplegate) and Once When We Were Kids (2021).