Artist Name: Sibyl MacKenzie

Art medium(s): Painting

Artist bio: Some of my earliest memories are of drawing and painting. We moved around a lot as a family—from England to Taiwan to Germany-- and art was my special thing. Something I could carry with me. A place of my own. My only formal art lessons were in Taiwan where I studied Chinese watercolors. My teacher was wonderful and serene and her paintings were luminous. Mine weren't. I haven't done watercolors since, although I remember my lessons very fondly. But I always continued painting. Now I paint in acrylics on a hardboard. Acrylics dry fast and are very versatile. They can be layered and poured and scratched. I am learning from my daughter that they can be dripped and flung and splashed—heady stuff for conservative me. I am a narrative painter although I try not to let the narrative dominate. I am searching for that space in the subconscious that provides meaning and mystery. I am trying to get that meaning and mystery into my paintings.