"Some years ago a friend gave Edward Mackenzie an old piano. It was a logical thing to do and probably an unspoken challenge to the artist to make something with it. While Mackenzie doesn't play the piano, his art is made from the found object - not towering heaps of detritus, but small works from bits that can be held in the hand. His work is intimate, evocative...also surprisingly elegant, considering its practical origins..
Using felts, hammers, keys, and other less recognizable piano parts (and some unrelated bits...) Mackenzie produces work that evokes a wide range of emotions. He is often witty, as in...Myoperatic, in which hammers form a one-eyed conductor conducting a one-eyed chorus...there are somber military references in Bavarian Black and Green Night of the Long Candles...There is also a rhythm that runs through the exhibit, almost as if music were being played.
As with all of Mackenzie's work we are asked to see, with him, the particular beauty and meaning of components, little scraps crafted to do a job, that give delight when put into a new context. The work comes from a particularly fertile and sensitive mind that invites us to consider our surroundings more carefully before we move on."
Shirley Jacks, Art New England, April/May 1996
Using felts, hammers, keys, and other less recognizable piano parts (and some unrelated bits...) Mackenzie produces work that evokes a wide range of emotions. He is often witty, as in...Myoperatic, in which hammers form a one-eyed conductor conducting a one-eyed chorus...there are somber military references in Bavarian Black and Green Night of the Long Candles...There is also a rhythm that runs through the exhibit, almost as if music were being played.
As with all of Mackenzie's work we are asked to see, with him, the particular beauty and meaning of components, little scraps crafted to do a job, that give delight when put into a new context. The work comes from a particularly fertile and sensitive mind that invites us to consider our surroundings more carefully before we move on."
Shirley Jacks, Art New England, April/May 1996
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Rhythmic Tumblers
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Five Foot Exercise
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Friesian Composition
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Myoperatic
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Blue Quadrille
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Politikization 1937
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Black and White
Piano Blues |
Chinese 'Yellow Bird'
Electronic Surface to Air Missle Delivery System |
Bavarian Black & Green
Night of the Long Candles |
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Black White & Red
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Water Tube Boiler Plate
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City Jazzscape
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Royal (Plantagenet) Enclosure
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Double Mint Condition
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South Pacific
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