Dani McKenzie

While undertaking the National Art School’s Onslow Storrier residency in Paris, painter Dani McKenzie (b. 1990) collected old Super-8 film at local flea markets. She based her Visions series on stills from this found footage. McKenzie was interested in isolating moments of movement in the film and translating them into painting. For her, ‘Painting, in this instance, slows down the act of looking, draws it out in time, and makes it conscious of itself, its own inconclusiveness.’ In Visions I and II, time is not stopped but loosely tethered – McKenzie’s soft drag of the brush across the picture suggests the pull of time and the imminent dissolution of the moment.

Images: Dani McKenzie, Visions I (detail), 2018, oil on linen, 30.5 x 41 cm; Visions II, 2018, oil on linen, 30.5 x 30.5 cm; National Art School Collection, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by the artist, 2018; © the artist