Artist : Alastair & Fleur Mackie
Title : Cast
Medium : bronze, steel, copper
Dimensions : 58 x 5 x 5 cm


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“When early humans ceased their nomadic existence as hunter-gatherers and settled down to cultivate the earth and produce food, they believed that the success of their labours was dependent on deities who would oversee the fruitfulness of their crops. In Britain it was believed that a spirit lived amongst the crop and that at harvest time it retreated before the oncoming reapers, taking refuge in the last of the standing corn. The final sheaf was personified, revered, and its fall marked with a formal ceremony and display. The sheaf was then fashioned into an effigy, a talisman believed to contain the spirit, and taken into the farmer’s home to be kept safe indoors throughout the winter, only to be returned to the earth with the coming of the new season. Giving the spirit a refuge during the dark and cold winter months was believed to ensure good luck for the forthcoming crop. In some cases the ‘trophy’ was burnt at the end of the winter as a way of releasing the spirit. As the earliest cultivated crops in human history, cereals continue to be among the most important food sources for us today. With a predicted world population of 9 billion by 2050, demand is expected to increase by 60% while their vulnerability to climate change leaves us precariously exposed. In keeping with historical convention we took hold of the corn spirit and in collaboration with one of the few remaining true practitioners of the craft, produced a traditional spiral plait which, in turn, has been encased within a mould, burnt out, and cast. The remnant ash from the effigy has then been used to make ‘The New Season’.” 


Alastair and Fleur Mackie’s practice is one of contrasts. It is as labour-intensive as it is formally effortless, as grounded in ideas of nature as it is in the intrinsically human struggle to define a role within the environment; it is as intellectually ambitious as it is aesthetically understated. Alastair grew up in an agricultural community in Cornwall, UK while Fleur’s childhood was split between Cameroon, France, and the UK. They met at art school in London in the late 90’s. Initially their creative practices were separate, but over time their work has evolved into a natural collaboration.  In 2011 they moved to live and work in Cornwall, the landscape of which has played a key role in the shaping of their vocabulary. Naturally occurring elements (native metals, wood, sea shells) are meticulously rearranged and transformed in a knowingly quixotic attempt to make sense of the primordial. Each work is something of an enigma, enriched by the loaded associations of its material and the story behind its making. Ally and Fleur operate by reduction; materials are pared down to their core. In their work, process dictates form, no matter how poetic or Romantic the piece’s origin. Alastair and Fleur Mackie have shown extensively in the UK and internationally, including exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Venice Biennale and the Reykjavik Art Museum. They have worked on a number of public commissions and their work is held in collections including The Olbricht Collection in Berlin, the Salsali Private Museum in Dubai and the Wellcome Collection in London.