Shirley Mackenzie

Shirley Mackenzie has a Bachelor’s degree in art and design, with a postgraduate degree in ceramics. She has enjoyed a career in teaching and is now retired. 

Mackenzie’s art work is intimate and tactile – not large scale. Her sketchpads are full of drawings capturing fleeting expression in portraiture and the ethereal and spiritual aspects in landscape. She is equally absorbed in the intricacies and repetitions of patterns which seem to her an aesthetic management of chaos. Mackenzie likes to capture transition, the in-between. Often she translates these drawings into clay, incorporating fabrics and metals to bring her ideas into the real world. 

Mackenzie’s has set up a class for mature artists in her local pub. Each Tuesday she gives drop in classes in drawing and painting and on Wednesdays she gives informal talks on Art History. The students are mature who have always been interested in Art but have never explored their creativity. The classes have been going for about three years and she is pleased to say are well attended. The classes have been designed to build student self-confidence, observational skills as well as connecting them to like minded people.