Scenes from Old Europe

Dougal McKenzie brings a series of Modernist influenced paintings and works on paper to the Ashford Gallery at the RHA in January 2006. McKenzie’s work deals with history and narrative, in particular the famous battle at Culloden between the Jacobites and Hanoverians in 1746, as well as more recent developments in post-war Eastern Bloc Europe. The battle of Culloden holds a special interest for the artist – this infamous event still resonates in Northern Ireland, as well as in his native Scotland.
While acknowledging the limitations of painting in interpreting historical facts, McKenzie hopes to open a dialogue between picture and content. Paintings such as Through Manchester and Waiting for Colonel Pole feature kilted soldiers emerging from semi abstract backgrounds that appear like negatives from a photographic image. The colours and effect created are distinctly contemporary with psychedelic purples, yellows and greens employed to dramatic effect. McKenzie uses a mixture of oil bar, charcoal, oil and domestic paint on linen.
Scenes from Old Europe also features new paintings, using old family holiday slides from the USSR and Romania as their source. The paintings keep the subject matter of the work and the style employed entirely separate from one another. This alienation of style from content begins to create a new space for reinterpretations of history to take place.