The Meaning of Flowers

January 13, 2014 by susanmoirmackay

I’ve been fighting shadows, in this case the shadow has a name, ‘Insurance Company’. A little hidden clause in my contract means that although they will pay for water damage, they will not pay for wood that has rotted due to water damage. Apparently, I was supposed to telepathically know that there was water leaking behind the pristine white tiles, before it became ‘rotted wood’.  To placate me, the smooth-voiced man on the phone from the insurance company, apologises for […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art • Tags: Anya Gallacia, art, dying flowers, Flowers, Marcel Duchamp, van gogh

Selfie Society!

November 21, 2013 by susanmoirmackay

My children are posing in front of me, lips flared, bottoms sticking out – with dramatic obscenity and two fingers held up in front of their faces. This, they tell me, is the new style for ‘selfies’. Selfies, in case you somehow missed it, is a self portrait (photograph) posted online. And the point of the selfies, to my cynically bemused eye, is to remind the world, if not yourself, how fabulous you look! Or an opportunity for self flagellation […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, nudes, photography, Portraits, Self Portrait, Selfie, society • Tags: art, conceptual art, frida khalo, lucien freud, portrait, sarah lucas, self portrait, selfies, van gogh

Blood, bones, hair and soap…

October 10, 2013 by susanmoirmackay

    There is an awful intimacy to drawing on bones. These are the bones of a dolphin. As I plot and mark or discover each slight nuanced gradient with my pen or pencil I feel as if I am probing into an unspeakable salty truth. But there is also something overwhelmingly awe inspiring in the intricacy of the structure of the bone. The bones fit in an astoundingly precise sequence to create what once was its back bone. Each […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, human nature, mandalas • Tags: art, blood, bones, conceptual art, death, hair., marina abramovic, skeleton

It’s a small world after all….

October 8, 2013 by susanmoirmackay

Pyxus 13 – mixed media – 2013 Its a small world after all… I made this piece in The Bahamas before we packed up and left. It was inspired by the small hidden places where one might tuck secrets – a cavity of unwelcome things. A common white fabric that has stitched in its entrails unspoken and unspeakable truths. I wonder about all the things we hide, especially from ourselves.  How well we must stitch them deeper and deeper inside. Inevitably […]

Categories: Art, contemporary art, Grand Bahama, The Bahamas • Tags: art, Bahamas, secrets, shame, small

March 23, 2013 by susanmoirmackay

Categories: Art, contemporary art, Grand Bahama, The Bahamas • Tags: art, Bahamas

NE6- Anthropology 2012- Human, System, Object.

January 19, 2013 by susanmoirmackay

2012 was supposed to be our end time and yet, we are still here! ‘Kingdom Come’ was the title of this year’s National Exhibition at the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. Artists were invited to explore the theme of apocalypse, personal or universal. Interestingly apocalypse ‘translated literally from Greek, is a disclosure of knowledge, hidden from humanity in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception’. (wikipedia) This quote intrigued me. And I decided to direct my approach from this […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Portraits, society, The Bahamas • Tags: art, Bahamas, conceptual art, construct, structure

Roots of a Contemporary Alchemist.

March 16, 2012 by susanmoirmackay

Transforming Spaces opens next weekend – 24th and 25th March. The annual event that takes tour buses around art galleries in New Providence for a feast of art, has a twist this year.  The organisers sent out a call for proposals based on the theme “Fibre”, specifically a re-imagining of indigenous fibre. It seems to me that with every piece of art I make, I hit a moment where I curse that I ever had the idea!  This moment hit me very clearly […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, Grand Bahama, National Art Gallery of the Bahamas, Profile, society, The Bahamas • Tags: arts

3 men.

August 7, 2011 by susanmoirmackay

O and I went to an event the other weekend.  it was ‘alternative’.  I phrase it carefully, this is a strange country. The people attending were not the ‘normal’ crowd.  Everyone fascinated me.  I wanted to paint them all, I could see so much on them, or at least I imagined I did.  Its hard to know if I was projecting.  But certainly I was inspired to portray what I imagined.  So I asked the two people we knew at the […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, photography, Portraits • Tags: art, art projects, Bahamas, photography, portraits, process

there is no sin

July 4, 2011 by susanmoirmackay

So after all my thoughts trying to make sense of the energy of censorship and the reality of sex/ making love.  I cant help but think about morals. I recently re watched the fascinating TED talk by Patricia Burchatt about dark energy and dark matter.  It intrigues me to imagine that (although it is all currently theoretical), the basic premise based on the evidence that they have, is that beyond the small percentage of matter, earth, us, trees, planets, stars etc, the […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, human nature, life, musings • Tags: art, conceptual art, dark energy, dark matter, morals, sin, sinlessness, spirituality, TED talks

censorship

June 29, 2011 by susanmoirmackay

Last week I had a small gathering chez nous to show my Freeport friends the pieces ”Psyche Pollution’,  ’21 Religious Thoughts…..’ and ‘Disparity Reality – Woman’ .   The point of the evening was to incite conversation about some of the issues raised in the work.  For example carbon footprint, what does it mean to be a woman, and our inner psychological reality affecting our outer environment. Upon setting up the work “Psyche Pollution” in our dinning room cove, (this work was a response […]

Categories: Art, Conceptual Art, contemporary art, musings, pornography, sex, society, taboo • Tags: art, Bahamas, censorship, conceptual art, pollution, psyche