Viewing room

Within Trees

andrew mackenzie

4th october - 27th december 2025
“In our current times, young saplings offer hope and some relief from the pain ANd the anxiety happening now. They frame the future and the past and exist in the present. So fragile and delicate, growing into a future way beyond us.”
Within Trees is a new series of panel paintings by Scottish artist Andrew Mackenzie responding to woodlands near the artist’s home in the Scottish Borders. Each piece explores our complex relationship with trees whether depicting Scots Pines by a winter reservoir, a disused quarry, or young self-seeded growth on a building plot.

Abstract line drawings, sometimes subtle, sometimes bold, run through the treescapes, suggesting human-made frameworks that create tension with the natural forms. Colour is used subjectively to evoke both beauty and unease. Surfaces are slowly built through layered oil paint and intricate marks of lines, dots, and dashes, producing tonal shifts that reflect a process of change. The aim is to present considered paintings which reference the history of landscape painting, while subtly questioning it. They emerge from the artists first hand experiences in the landscape but combine these experiences in the studio with ideas gathered from reading, from an immersion in paintings from the past and from modernism. They acknowledge our place within the world, as opposed to the sense of separation which so easily leads to exploitation. The work references the tradition of landscape painting while quietly challenging it, drawing on the artist’s direct experience, readings, and influences from both historical and modern art.
“Within the patterns of trees, we catch glimpses of ourselves.”
What is different about this show?

This is the first show I have done where trees are emphasised as the ‘main’ subject of the work, in the title. Trees have been present in the work for over 20 years. Although the compositions and subjects are familiar from art history, the process transforms the subject matter, especially coupled with the intersection of line drawings.

How do you begin with a new body of work?

I spend a lot of time when preparing for a show gathering material, sometimes drawing outside, but more often recording through photography. In the paintings, I build up layers of paint on gesso on panel, through applying and removing the paint. The subject matter gets repeatedly established and then obscured until a balance is reached between surface, subject and colour, somewhere between figuration and abstraction. I am playing with the tension between the depth and the surface, often employing hand drawn perspectival line drawings in space which support the illusion while also subtly undermining it. The linear frameworks are like tilted picture planes, frameworks for seeing through, as much as suggestions of walls or architecture. They are deliberately hard to pin down and can be read in a number of ways. They support the construct, but also draw attention to it, perhaps causing the viewer to be aware of the act of seeing. They prompt questions around what you think you are looking at.

What roles does colour play in your work?

Colour is used subjectively, originally inspired by a childhood memory of yellow/orange sodium light reflecting on a tree. Artificial light is also key – neon, streetlights, torchlight, car headlights, reflectors – ways we have of seeing in the darkness. The colour is also something the viewer can connect with in their own way. Very often colour solutions are in answer to the process of making a painting – freeing colour from the constraints of depicting reality. Sometimes you need orange, red or magenta to activate the surface, to make relationships with other parts of the painting. They always take a long time to arrive at, and go through many changes. They present a balance, not an opposition.
Andrew will be at Velarde discussing his work along with his ideas and processes on Saturday 4th October from 11am - 12noon. To confirm your place please email gallery@velarde.co.uk
For all enquires please contact gallery@velarde.co.uk