Artwork Title: You Know What I Mean

You Know What I Mean, 2015

William Mackinnon

William Mackinnon’s You know what I mean 2015 has been acquired by the Parliament Art House Collection in Canberra. Painted in acrylic and oil, the work continues Mackinnon’s use of the road as a motif for exploring the Australian landscape while also delving into the internal landscape of the mind of the isolated driver. Exhibited as part of group exhibition, Road Trip, You Know What I Mean 2015, expresses the way in which these journeys can build the foundations for our understanding of the landscape. [http://www.janmurphygallery.com.au/artist/william-mackinnon/news/] A novelist described the writing process like driving through a foggy night. That you can only see as far as your headlights but that allows you enough information to make the next decision about how to proceed. I reckon this is a fitting description of how I go about making a painting. You might well be thinking that this is a pretty haphazard approach. this driving around in the dark without a plan. For some of the time it is, and there are certainly lot of dead ends. But weirdly this approach takes the pressure off if you give yourself time, lots of time and accept that there are no mistakes, that's it is just a process to let the work come through and form. It is quite liberating. …I have to discover the work as I go. My work contains a human messiness and playfulness as opposed to the clear, tight executed pieces. My paintings are not explictly about any one theme. They are open. I cast a wide net, trying to absorb, to catch the truth of my feeling and experience of our world, of our time, even if I don't consciously understand it. I am more antennae to the world than a separate ego organizing it. I am seeking to be true to my personal experience of being in the world, using what is immediately around me and in my head. Remembering summers past, dreaming of owning a beach shack, longing for change and improvement or getting away. I try to realize its emotional content with formal invention to make paintings that are coarse, funny, nostalgic and powerful. paintings that engage with your mind and your guts. Maybe in 20 years these paintings will be a time capsule of what it's like to be alive now. In the end they are all self portraits in a way They are an expression of my sensibility. [Transcription of excerpts of narration from film Psychological Landscapes, 2016]
71 x 47 in
Uploaded on Dec 4, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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