Catherine Mackey’s move from a career in interior architecture to a life as a full-time artist coincided with her move from London to the Bay Area in the late nineties.

Her creative focus has turned away from highly designed spaces toward pragmatic architecture: buildings shaped by the necessity of manufacture, industry and – more recently – agriculture. She explores the demise and abandonment of structures no longer suited for today’s industries, and she searches for the accidental “moments” of beauty caused by their neglect and decay. At a surface level, these moments include the rust on an old sea-wall, the decay of wooden pier structures, and faded signage advertising products and businesses of the past. On a deeper level, these moments include the structural reveal which happens during the demolition process, or during the slow collapse of buildings as seen in her recent work with agricultural barns. 

What all of Mackey’s work has in common is her interest in the history of the structures and the people who used them. She discovers forgotten stories told by layers of construction scars, signage, and abandoned artifacts. Over the years, she has collected old signpost templates and transcribed fading advertising signs – both of which she regularly uses in her work. Because of the prevalence of posters, especially in urban environments, Mackey also began to use this material in her work, adding a layer of narrative beneath and between the layers of paint. She now collects fragments of posters from streets wherever she goes in the belief that people’s stories are essentially the same wherever they live. The addition of these fragments, some of which peek through the paint and some which shout their presence, reminds us of ubiquitous layered narratives and allows for a more tactile viewing experience.

Mackey lives in San Francisco and works from her studio in a converted mayonnaise factory in the Mission District. Her work can be found in homes and offices across the US and Europe, and as far afield as Australia and China.