Duncan Mackay

I have been creative all my life. Some of that early life was spent searching the beaches from Redcar to Whitby for ‘devil’s toenails’, ammonites and other fossils. I was particularly inspired by the awesome juxtaposition of the man-made and the natural; made abundantly evident by the industrial landscapes, from steel works to alum extraction, in the hinterland of the coast. Art and geology were my two most successful and favourite subjects at school. However, I was forced to choose one or the other to go to university and I reluctantly decided to pursue the life scientific. My cv fills in the detail of my environmental career.

In autumn 2022 I decided to re-wild my artistic self and release my fledgling art works for sale on Instagram which has now, for lack of a studio, become my display and dialogue space. I have achieved surprising success as an emergent artist in a very short time, being shortlisted for both the 2023 and 2024 international Climate Creatives Challenge Prizes, accepted as a solo exhibitor on the Henley Arts Trail 2024 and invited to participate in the inaugural group exhibition at the Badger in the Wall Gallery, Clapham, North Yorkshire in May 2024. As all artists need a niche in the vast ecology of art, I launched my ‘Ready-Found Art Movement’ in 2023 amused by the Dada-ist ‘Ready-Made’ movement that has been seen as the precursor to much modern, pop and contemporary art.

I have dedicated my practice to melding abandoned marine plastics spat ashore by a vengeful ocean and objects of wood, shell and stone sculpted by nature. Utilising my knowledge gained as a geology and geography graduate and as a Fellow of the Landscape Institute, I beach-comb the tidal shores of the prettiest parts of Britain in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty for these plastics that sully our seas, and stones that melt our hearts. From these ‘Pretty-Dirty Places’ I retrieve both art materials and inspiration. I collect stones. I might only take one in a billion pebbles on a strand but my questing eye is ceaselessly hunting for the enduring intrinsic qualities that make a simple stone ‘special’. This has been a Buddhist art form in the far east since the time of the Tang dynasty in China called gongshi 供石 (in Korea 수석suseok and in Japan 水石 suiseki). Special found stones were eagerly sought in the wild that embodied in miniature sacred mountains or the mythic land of the immortals. The spread of Buddhist teachings and imperial diplomacy to Korea, Japan and Vietnam saw these stones mounted on intricately carved rosewood platforms or supported in sand-filled bronze bowls as gifts of the emperor to the elite. The tradition and trade in such objects has endured and risen dramatically in value through the centuries.

In American antique markets they are called ‘viewing stones’ or ‘scholar stones’ derived from their past use in the east as meditative objects. The Oscar-winning Korean film ‘The Parasite’ has the alleged wealth-bringing power of one such stone at the core of its story and indeed the film’s director, Bong Joon-ho, was taken out as a child by his father to hunt for such ‘lucky’ stones. In Japan, strict aesthetic display rules and categories have been formulated and, alongside bonsai, applications are currently being made to UNESCO to declare and recognise such water-stone art to be ‘intangible cultural heritage’.

My practice has sought to avoid direct cultural appropriation of these objects by punking up my special stones with ready found marine plastic and industrial waste mounting materials. I call these ‘un-comfortable viewing’ stones, to stir our collective amnesiac consciousness as a prompt for meditative reflection on the disgraceful condition that our plastic-polluted waters have achieved during my lifetime. I want to re-evaluate and re-value such simple things. My artistic practice will always seek inspiration from combinations of the natural and the un-natural; is constantly evolving as new opportunities arise to demonstrate this juncture of uncertainty; and playfully throws pebbles in the great pond of life and watches for the ripples.

HEART OF THE NORTH EAST

The environment of EARTH. Inspired by the heritage of the iron and steel industry in North East England and the Japanese art form called suiseki (water stone). My work is comprised of a unique, naturally sculpted, beach-foraged, heavy ironstone, a repurposed walnut wood offcut from a craft furniture maker and a ‘strimpet’ woven from discarded fishing line from Skinningrove and an abraded limpet shell.

Stone, walnut wood, plastic, shell

H 11cm W 7cm D 6cm

2024

£30

DO ANTHROPOCENE SALMON DREAM OF PLASTIC FLIES

The environment of WATER. Inspired by the sci-fi book title ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ by Phillip K Dick and the Japanese art form called suiseki (water stone). The book was transferred to film by Ridley Scott in the 1982 version called ‘Blade Runner’ and in 2017 in ‘Blade Runner 2049’. My work reflects the increasingly dystopian environmental degradation of rivers and seas.

Stone, oak wood, copper, plastic, acrylic paint

H 12cm W 16cm D 13cm

2024

£30

LOOK UP AND SEE WONDERS

The environment of AIR. Inspired by the Hatford Meteorite of 6 April 1628 and the Japanese art form called suiseki (water stone). Before science, sonic booms and stones falling from the sky were given florid descriptions. Thomas Dekker’s pamphlet ’Look Up and See Wonders’ described the event and the attempts by local people to dig up the meteorite fragments, led by a Mistress Greene and a man said to have been struck lame during the retrieval of the regmaglyptic stony chondrites. My work reimagines that wonder, the pitted stones as well as the impact craters. Just add smoke and sound (not included).

Stone, antique Denbyware, rubber, acrylic paint

H 9cm W7cm D 5 cm

2024

£30