Tofino artist Colin MacRae
Colin MacRae is a self-taught artist who has chosen metal as the medium for his work.MacRae's scarified line often depicts vaguely anthropomorphised figures awash in situations that seem out of their control, or perhaps imposed on them against their will. Regardless of what exactly they are perceived as, these characters retain a sense of humanity.
His line is kinetic, occasionally offset by constructivist or cubist detailing, and is set against shape-shifting backgrounds of varying depth composed of various patinated metals. New penny-bright hammered copper, corrugated siding, dull or mirrored steel, multihued rust bleeding through metal: all result in light sliding off of, into and pooling onto MacRae's pieces, effects as necessary to each work as the preliminary drawings which the artist makes for them.
MacRae's work is often contained within a cartouche or decorative frame containing information, or signposts (sometimes literally) relevant to a reading of his work. Opposing "this way up" (or down) arrows, daggers, polestars, marble festooned crown-cupola, hearts, abstract diptychs composed of patina, and each enclosed within yet another, riveted frame: any detritus of iconography through with ages can turn up here, to slightly menacing effect. The obvious interpretations can seem like cruel jokes viewed against the larger picture. But then, this is MacRae's point: to be deeply mistrustful for the obvious and the hype--to reject prescribed notions of ourselves and our work and to coexist with duality, the seen and unseen forces, that control us, and which we control, in turn.
View some of Colin MacRae's art at the Lounge Collection art gallery in Tofino.
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