Collection: Shona Mackenzie

In 2024 Shona Mackenzie became the inaugural winner of Art Shows Across Aotearoa’s prestigious STUFF Art Aotearoa Gold Award for Art Excellence. With her evocative semi-abstract landscape Heart’s Content, Shona first won the Auckland region prize before being announced as the national winner by Karl Chitham.

In 2021 Shona made the life changing move to become a full time artist and quickly became a resident artist at The Incubator Creative Hub in Tauranga.

Born in Auckland Mackenzie’s early life - spent living overseas and across New Zealand, set the pattern for adventuring and frequent moves. As a young adult, a decade of living in Scotland helped her reconnect with her extended family, her culture and the wild landscape of the Scottish West Coast. Unsurprisingly much of Shona’s work is landscape based. Her deep connection with the land is parallelled in both countries. Through this lens she explores long forgotten memories, what it means to call two countries home and generational echoes of emotion.

Statement

My work is heavily influenced by the beauty of our fragile world and my deep rooted connection to the land. As a visual hoarder I am forever noticing and squirrelling away, those special moments found when you are completely present out in nature. This has been a lifelong occupation and obsession.

Always working in a series, I begin with energetic and expressive marks allowing my chosen media to do their thing. Subsequent layers of acrylic and mixed media develop in response to those first marks. A (mostly) quiet conversation with the canvas ensues and is informed by observation, memory and emotion. Eventually comes the point where through analysis I seek to balance these abstract layers with suggested landforms and interpret the stories that are making themselves heard.