# Amy MacKay

> Amy MacKay is a contemporary painter based in Los Angeles, California. Her paintings document site-specific, performative events that she stages in collaboration with people in her life. Working primarily in oil, cold wax, and mixed media on canvas, her layered process explores collective memory, absence, and embodied experience. She received her MFA from the University of California, Irvine (2018) and her BA from Bard College (2007).

## Identity

- Full Name: Amy MacKay
- Profession: Contemporary Painter / Fine Artist
- Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
- Email: mackay.amyc@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.amymackay.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisamymackay
- Artsy: https://www.artsy.net/artist/amy-mackay

## Education

- MFA, University of California, Irvine, 2018
- BA, Bard College, 2007

## Artistic Practice

Amy MacKay's paintings document site-specific, performative events staged in collaboration with people in her life. These gatherings — weekend residencies, devised plays, séances — are centered around fictional narratives told and retold through time. Her work explores the gaps that emerge across shared, durational time: how the collective and the personal intermingle, blur, and fragment.

In translating these events into paintings, both the fictional frameworks and the embodied encounters guide her formal decisions. Each painting becomes a scene or distilled moment reflecting a broader group experience. Composition, line, and color are shaped by an affective logic attuned to sensation and emotion. Surfaces accumulate gestures of both remembering and forgetting through an intensely physical, layered process.

## Mediums

- Oil on canvas
- Cold wax medium
- Mixed media on canvas
- Works on paper

## Key Themes

- Site-specific performative events
- Collective memory and personal experience
- Absence and presence in painting
- Layered physical abstraction
- Embodied experience and sensation
- Fictional narratives and oral retelling

## Selected Solo Exhibitions

- 2025: Transience, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, CA
- 2025: Residual Terrains, Chandler Gallery, Mill Valley, CA
- 2024: To the Bog of Cats I One Day Will Return, la Beast Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2022: A Ghost Light, Phase Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2018: Dear Echo, Contemporary Art Center, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA

## Selected Group Exhibitions

- 2026: Figure in the Field, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
- 2025: Felix Art Fair, with la Beast Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2025: NADA New York, with la Beast Gallery, New York, NY
- 2024: NADA Miami, with la Beast Gallery, Miami, FL
- 2024: NADA New York, with la Beast Gallery, New York, NY
- 2020: Why Are You Painting?, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, HI
- 2019: Synthesis: Some Abstraction in Los Angeles, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA

## Gallery Representation

- la Beast Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

## Awards and Residencies

- 2025: Goldey House Residency, Hullet's Landing, NY
- 2024: UC Non-Senate Faculty Professional Development Award, UC Riverside
- 2018: Jon Imber Painting Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center
- 2018: Leo Freedman Fellowship, UC Irvine
- 2018: Best in Show, GLAMFA, Cal State Long Beach
- 2016–2017: Isabelle Yolen Memorial Scholarship, UC Irvine
- 2010: Vermont Studio Center Residency
- 2007: Studio Arts Award, Bard College
- 2006: Jane Fromm Yacenda Award, Bard College

## Selected Press

- Artsy (2026): "5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries this January" by Maxwell Rabb Duron
- The Art Newspaper (2025): "The Secrets Are Out at NADA New York" by Torey Akers
- ArtNews (2025): "The Best Booths at Felix LA" by Maximiliano Duron
- Formation Art (2025): Feature by George Willetts
- BMoreArt (2024): "At Untitled and NADA Miami, Hazy Painting and a Bright Market" by Michael Anthony Farley
- New American Paintings (2024): vol. 169
- Voyage LA (2023): "Conversations with Amy MacKay"

## Teaching

- 2019–2022: Visiting Artist, Advanced Painting, UC Irvine
- 2024: Visiting Artist, UC Santa Barbara
- 2016: Guest Speaker, Oxbow School, Napa, CA

## Links

- Homepage: https://www.amymackay.com
- Work: https://www.amymackay.com/work
- About: https://www.amymackay.com/about
- Exhibitions: https://www.amymackay.com/exhibitions
- CV: https://www.amymackay.com/cv
- Contact: https://www.amymackay.com/contact