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About Artist:
MACKENZIE THORPE INTRODUCTION Internationally renowned artist Mackenzie Thorpe was raised in an industrial town in Northern England during a period of long economic hardship. Struggling with dyslexia early in his life, Mackenzie found salvation in painting and drawing. His works express an entire range of human emotion, from the special bond of love and friendship, to the importance of self-reflection and individual triumphs. His works are a tribute to the creativity within us all and are a vivid expression of hope and the human spirit. == MACKENZIE THORPE: MY STORY "I was the oldest of seven children, born into a three-bedroom council house in Middlesbrough. My father was a laborer, with no trade qualifications. "There was no luxury. Three pennies a week would be pocket money - if I got any. But at that age you don't know you're poor. I thought where I lived was the biggest town in the world, like any other kid does. "I've always drawn. And when I drew, I'd go into my own world. I'd spend my time getting cigarette packets, unwrapping them, flattening them and drawing on them. I'd just draw and draw and draw. "I knew I was going to be a painter. I think I was eleven when I saw, 'Lust for Life', the film about Van Gogh. I really identified with Van Gogh, especially in the scene where everyone is shouting at him, making fun of him. That sort of thing happened to me all the time because I didn't fight back. Nobody understood me. And I didn't even know what it was they couldn't understand. "I left school at fifteen. I couldn't get any qualifications because of my dyslexia. I did all sorts of jobs, working on ships up and down the Tees, often on the dole. It was a bad time for me, and I was really unhappy. One day a friend suggested I go along to the art college. "My application form was terrible, the spelling was all wrong and it was clear enough that I couldn't write essays. But I had literally thousands of drawings. At that time I used to carry an old school blackboard around on my back. I fixed a drawing board onto it, and some haversack straps. I was out at six in the morning drawing in the parks, everywhere. And because I had this huge pile of work there was no problem at the college - I was in! "I had no confidence at all when I started there. If somebody had said I was blue I'd have believed them. I put all my gear in a bag with 'Karate' written on the side so people would think I was some kind of martial arts expert and leave me alone! "Seeing the paintings in the Tate Gallery for the first time changed my whole way of thinking. From then on I just ate and drank modern art. Rothko, especially, is one of my real heroes. I realized how important it was to put myself, Mackenzie Thorpe, into my paintings. "When I first set up the Art Haus shop things were very difficult again. There were problems with money and a lot of local people were putting down my work. That's when I did the first 'square sheep'. It just came to me, I don't know why. But I knew straight away why it was square. Sexism, racism, homophobia, bigotry, conformity, that's what it represented. Soon though, the sheep came to mean something different, to do with my family, my wife and kids. "My family is one of the biggest influences on me now. I'll draw a picture and it'll be so bright, I'll like it so much that I'll call it 'Owen' or 'Chloe' or 'Susan', because I want them to have it, it's for them. "I work here in my shop, with this big wide window. Everyone can see in, see what I do - there are no tricks! It's not a gift from God, I'm just a normal bloke doing my job, like anybody else. "Sometimes my life has been a dark tunnel, but a dark tunnel can be very productive. You've got to do your best to come out at the other end. I'm fighting all the time in my pictures. But there's lots of fun in them too. All sorts of bad things have gone on, but I'm here, I've survived. I believe that there is hope, and that you can be happy if you work at it. "If you see a flower, look at it, paint it - but don't pick it, don't hurt it! That's the kind of innocence I'm trying to get across." === Mackenzie Thorpe's Journey in Life by Sarah Seamark Mackenzie Thorpe can't remember not drawing whether it was on scraps of newspaper or in a six-penny sketchbook he bought with his pocket money. Using cold ashes from the family fireplace to draw with, he learned at an early age to express his emotions through art. They were the feelings of a severely learning-disabled child growing up in the harsh environment of an economically depressed industrial town in the north of England in the 1950s. "The steel works, iron foundries, shipyards, and pubs of Middlesborough- that was my world," says Thorpe. Yet, beneath the daily grind of life, of families struggling to make ends meet, and Thorpe's own challenges of living with severe dyslexia, he found meaning to life which he committed to paper. He remembers, "The teacher would say to me, 'Sit there and draw. Don't bother with math and writing because you can't do it."' Thorpe's message is, "You can do it." The biggest gift we have been given is the ability to continue to learn, he says. Thorpe first gained a diploma from Middlesborough College of Art and then went on to earn a fine arts degree at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. Now he spends much of his time visiting schools, talking with children, especially those with learning disabilities, and encouraging them in their challenge. Thorpe's images almost all hark back to his own childhood and the lessons he learned. Working in handmade pure pigment pastels and sometimes in acrylic, his art describes love and hope symbolically blooming in an inhospitable terrain, images immortalizing the men who physically labored at the yards long gone, and the movie stars he idolized in brief moments of escapism at the cinema. "In all of hardship there is a glimmer of light; it may be very small, but it is there," says Thorpe. "My art brings hope. People can see themselves in it-see how they were and how they have made progress, and moved on." A woman looking at one of his paintings, "Prisoners," told Thorpe, "That was how I was, but I have moved on." She could see the positive, and it made her laugh. "I want people to laugh," says Thorpe. "They have also cried because they have been there, and remember." His subtle yet simplistic images transcend private obsession to present a sympathetic view of humanity at large-speaking to people on all socioeconomic levels. "Whether you are a lawyer or a laborer, you still face life's challenges," Thorpe asserts. "End of Night Shift" and "In the Sound of the Siren" are among his works eulogizing the men who worked the shifts-their bodies getting thinner and thinner until they are gone, just like the industries in which they worked. Images of cowboys, "Riding the Range" and others, reflect Thorpe's Saturdays at the cinema when, as a child, he would lose himself in the Westerns of John Wayne, pretending he was, for a character in the movie-loved, liked, handsome-"all the things I aspired to be." The injustices done to the American Indians haunted him, resulting in such works as "Spirit Lane," and "Waves Forest." He often listens to their music as he works. Most of the animals that Thorpe creates represent his two children-the soft smile, gentle nature-as in "Scent of Spring" "The Birds and the Bees," and "Tom." "I also do myself as different animals-and if someone sees it, and they smile' they get how was at that time." Figuratively, every cloud is pain, a knock on the door a fear and the alarm clock another work day. Thorpe drew the shepherd in "The Great Journey" as a symbol of manhood. The sheep are all smiling because the shepherd has the ability to take away their pain. His flowers, as in "The Flower Bringer," represent hope. "Flowers can grow in the toughest places, just as love can be found in abused children and grown," he tells me. Thorpe believes in man's inner strength coming from the land, rather than from books as something learned second-hand. Even in his busy schedule of attending numerous gallery openings in both the U.K. and the U.S., Thorpe likes to keep close to nature when he is home in the Yorkshire Dales, where he and his wife Susan live with their children, Chloe, 13, and Owen, 15, plus Gemma, their Border Collie. He gets lots of thoughts on walks, especially in the isolation of the Dales or the beaches of Redcar and Whitby. It was on one such walk that he got the inspiration for his 1998 four-piece suite, "Love," "Life," "Death," and "Hope." I ask him which title belongs to which piece as we look at these dramatic depictions of a partial eclipse, one of which shows the tiny figures of his family standing hand-n-in-hand on the edge of the world. He says they all have the same name. "Love, life, death an hope-there is no difference between them. You can't have on without the other." Thorpe's work is published 1) The Chase Group, Chicago, a hand-pulled serigraphs in editions of 125 to 375. They are printed a two different printers, one in the U.S. and the other in England, depending upon what his publisher is trying to achieve. For his images with bold, broad, flat colors, Chameleon Editions, Jersev City, NJ, is the printer; and for those with more subtle textiles and a lot of tonal variations, it is Gresham Studios, Cambridge, who has printed for Claes Oldenburg. The Chase Group releases up to five of Thorpe's images a year, with a retail price of $395 to $1,500. His originals, measuring from 16 by 20 inches to 40 by 50 inches, sell for $3,500 to $12,000, depending upon size. Collectors include William Hague, leader of the Conservative Party, who made a Christmas card of one of Thorpe's shepherd images for his constituents; and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. His work hangs in the London offices of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Thorpe is an avid supporter of the work of the British Dvslexia Foundation and within the U.S., he and The Chase Group work with various local charities in conjunction with art galleries to support literacy in children. His work is carried by about 50 galleries in the U.S. as well as by galleries in the U.K. where his exclusive distributor is "Washington Green, Birmingham. -Art World News, September 1999, page 76 == Mackenzie Thorpe was born in northern England (1956), the eldest of seven children. he overcame dyslexia to become the world rewnowned artist he is today,He attended Byam Shaw Art College in London. After 12 years living there he became disenchanted and moved back to Northern England. His style whilst influenced by Van Gogh and Rothko remains unique to him...
Statement:
‘Seeing the painting in the Tate for the first time changed my whole way of thinking. From then on I ate and drank modern art. Rothko, especially is one of my real heroes. I realised how important it was to put myself 'Mackenzie Thorpe', into my paintings'. == "I was the oldest of seven children, born into a three-bedroom council house in Middlesbrough. My father was a laborer, with no trade qualifications. "There was no luxury. Three pennies a week would be pocket money - if I got any. But at that age you don't know you're poor. I thought where I lived was the biggest town in the world, like any other kid does. "I've always drawn. And when I drew, I'd go into my own world. I'd spend my time getting cigarette packets, unwrapping them, flattening them and drawing on them. I'd just draw and draw and draw. "I knew I was going to be a painter. I think I was eleven when I saw, 'Lust for Life', the film about Van Gogh. I really identified with Van Gogh, especially in the scene where everyone is shouting at him, making fun of him. That sort of thing happened to me all the time because I didn't fight back. Nobody understood me. And I didn't even know what it was they couldn't understand. "I left school at fifteen. I couldn't get any qualifications because of my dyslexia. I did all sorts of jobs, working on ships up and down the Tees, often on the dole. It was a bad time for me, and I was really unhappy. One day a friend suggested I go along to the art college. "My application form was terrible, the spelling was all wrong and it was clear enough that I couldn't write essays. But I had literally thousands of drawings. At that time I used to carry an old school blackboard around on my back. I fixed a drawing board onto it, and some haversack straps. I was out at six in the morning drawing in the parks, everywhere. And because I had this huge pile of work there was no problem at the college - I was in! "I had no confidence at all when I started there. If somebody had said I was blue I'd have believed them. I put all my gear in a bag with 'Karate' written on the side so people would think I was some kind of martial arts expert and leave me alone! "Seeing the paintings in the Tate Gallery for the first time changed my whole way of thinking. From then on I just ate and drank modern art. Rothko, especially, is one of my real heroes. I realized how important it was to put myself, Mackenzie Thorpe, into my paintings. "When I first set up the Art Haus shop things were very difficult again. There were problems with money and a lot of local people were putting down my work. That's when I did the first 'square sheep'. It just came to me, I don't know why. But I knew straight away why it was square. Sexism, racism, homophobia, bigotry, conformity, that's what it represented. Soon though, the sheep came to mean something different, to do with my family, my wife and kids. "My family is one of the biggest influences on me now. I'll draw a picture and it'll be so bright, I'll like it so much that I'll call it 'Owen' or 'Chloe' or 'Susan', because I want them to have it, it's for them. "I work here in my shop, with this big wide window. Everyone can see in, see what I do - there are no tricks! It's not a gift from God, I'm just a normal bloke doing my job, like anybody else. "Sometimes my life has been a dark tunnel, but a dark tunnel can be very productive. You've got to do your best to come out at the other end. I'm fighting all the time in my pictures. But there's lots of fun in them too. All sorts of bad things have gone on, but I'm here, I've survived. I believe that there is hope, and that you can be happy if you work at it. "If you see a flower, look at it, paint it - but don't pick it, don't hurt it! That's the kind of innocence I'm trying to get across."
History:
His work has sold out six exhibitions in the last few years. He had the biggest one man show ever held in Northern England at Allerton Castle, 1995. He was selected as the offical artist for the 1996 Artexpo LA and was commissioned by Elton John’s Aids Foundation to do the 1996 Holiday cards.Makenzie now resides in Richmond, North Yorkshire, with his wife Susan and his children Owen and Chloe.
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