OF THE LAND

Alastair and Fleur Mackie make contemplative sculpture that’s deeply embedded in the Cornish landscape. They’re now based here in Rock.

Abeautifully simple stool, made of oak, from a tree that died in Mount’s Bay two and a half thousand years before Christ was born, when the bay was wooded and far from the sea. The tree was pickled in peat, buried in sand, and submerged by the rising Atlantic for four and half thousand years, until uncovered by a storm in 2020. Mount’s Bay Stool (2022) is by Fleur and Alastair Mackie, the North Cornish duo making sculpture steeped in stories of substance and place.

Alastair and Fleur now work here in Rock, but long and interesting careers in art have led them both here. Alastair grew up in a farming community in South Cornwall while Fleur’s childhood was split between Cameroon, France, and the UK. Meeting at art school in London in the 90’s, over time their work has evolved into a close collaboration.

The pair has shown extensively in the UK and internationally, including exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Venice Biennale and the Busan Museum of Modern Art. They have worked on a number of public commissions and their work is held in collections including the Cass Sculpture Foundation in Sussex, the Olbricht Collection in Berlin and the Wellcome Collection in London.

In 2011 they moved to North Cornwall, and the landscape here has fundamentally shaped the vocabulary of their work. Cornwall is not just where Alastair and Fleur’s work is made, but what it’s made of. Naturally occurring elements - native metals, seashells, clays are meticulously collected, rearranged and transformed.

The stories of the places, materials and processes involved in the work are as much a part of their work as the physical objects themselves. For Canopy, (2014), made for an exhibition on the theme of home, Alastair collected one leaf from every tree he passed under on a twenty mile walk from their house on the North Coast of Cornwall to his childhood home near Lerryn (‘Canopy’ is pictured overleaf).

Above The Domination Of Things (2016), Cowrie shells, limestone

Opposite page top With The Past On The Left And The Future On The Right (2021-22), Limpet shells reunited with their place of origin

Below Canopy (2014), Oak, steel, leaf (detail)

Work on The Domination Of Things (2016) began with the artists being commissioned to find cowrie shells (historically the most common form of shell money) on a Cornish beach, for eight hours a day, over three days. Each shell was placed within a corresponding recess cut into a tablet of limestone and subsequently offered as a medium of exchange.

The duo describe themselves as site-specific artists, and it’s easy to see why. Each piece of work is something of an enigma, enriched by the loaded associations of its material, sense of place and the story behind its making. They’re a welcome addition to the Cornish art scene and we’re thrilled they have chosen Rock as their base.

WHERE TO SEE ALASTAIR AND FLEUR’S WORK IN CORNWALL THIS SUMMER

Mount’s Bay Stool (2022) and With The Past On The Left And The Future On The Right (2021-2022) will both be shown as part of We Are Floating In Space at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, 11th February – 3rd June. newlynartgallery.co.uk

From This Day On (2023) is a new large-scale permanent outdoor work installed at Tremenheere Sculpture Garden, near Penzance from February. tremenheere.co.uk

Complex System 123 and 124 (2016) will be showing as part of the group exhibition Subversive Landscape at the gallery at Tremenheere, 28th April - 28th May .

Alastair & Fleur Mackie Studio, Projects Twenty Two, Off Trewiston Lane, Rock. www.afmackie.com (07818) 073473

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This substantial, contemporary property occupies an enviable position with wonderful far reaching views of Brea Hill and the Camel Estuary across Cornish countryside. Built in 2019 with great attention to detail, the sleek modern design and generous layout provides impressive open plan living areas that front the garden, terraces and balconies to make the most of the coastal views.

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