Alastair mackinven biography of william
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Alastair Mackinven
The hemsökt, dreamlike atmosphere of Alastair Mackinven’s paintings hearkens back to the late nineteenth century—to the era of symbolism, aestheticism, and decadence. While many of the forms in his tableaux may be well-defined, one always has the suspicion that each picture’s hazy and interfusing hues are acting independently of the obscure irresolvable dramas that seem to unfold in the work. His figurative scenarios, full of eerie doings in intangible and indeterminate spaces, are enigmatic: In one of the works (all are Untitled, 2020), the head of an unsmiling woman, pale as a marble statue under multicolored fluorescent lights—and bearing an expression as inscrutable as the Mona Lisa’s—is accompanied by a dog, perhaps a whippet, whose eye flashes a radioactive red. Elsewhere, another woman, nude, sits up in a pool of water that in the foreground falls off a hard perpendicular edge, as though flowing from a tabletop. Her
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We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Alastair Mackinven (1971–2025), an extraordinary artist, musician, writer, and teacher.
Two works by Alastair from his "Abstract Capitalist Realism" series are installed in Valo Park, Virginia, Washington DC. This series, featuring silkscreen prints taken from the once familiar data protection patterns printed inside envelopes and the anti-counterfeiting holograms used by credit card companies. exemplify his critical engagement with painting – and the world.
"As the realism part of the title implies, I am making POP paintings that are not only abstract patterns but also relate to very real elemental forces: gas for heat – water – payment for the roof over my head. Undeniable realism. As the economy has altered over the last year, the abstract nature of money and value has become apparent to the wider world, somewhat of a paradox, an abstract realism."
Alastair MacKinven, 2009
He was an important teac
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Alastair Mackinven, British artist, 1971–2025
The British artist, painter, musician, writer and teacher Alastair Mackinven has died at the age of fifty-three following a long illness. Mackinven was represented by Maureen Paley, who confirmed his death in a statement describing him as ‘a wonderful person who will be greatly missed by all who knew and appreciated him and his work’.
Born in Clatterbridge in 1971, he received his BFA from the Alberta College of Art, Calgary in 1994 and his MFA from Goldsmiths in 1996. His crossdisciplinary work, which spanned figurative painting, film sculpture and performance, often brought a playful, critical perspective to the act of artmaking itself, while drawing into question the institutional framework of the gallery. In one performance at Camden Arts Centre in London in 2008, he deliberately glued his hand to the floor of the gallery and waited to see how long it would take for gallery staff to offer him help.
In recent years he foc