Mac McNaughton

Mac joined Kettle’s Yard in 2023 as a Visitor Assistant after moving to Cambridgeshire. Mac came first as a visitor and instantly fell in love with the house and the collection. He previously worked for Elephant in London and wanted to continue working in an art environment. When Mac was living in London, he regularly visited galleries such as The National Gallery every Friday evening to sketch. He loves coming into work a bit early to sketch in the house. 

Mac has a first class honours in painting from Camberwell UAL and he is continuing his studies doing evening courses with the CAA and ESOP. If he’s not at Kettle’s Yard he’s in his painting studio getting work together for painting shows. Mac doesn’t believe artists work best in isolation and his painting practice is constantly in conversation with the artists in the collection at Kettle’s Yard. 

Mac’s favourite work at Kettle’s Yard is Ben Nicolson’s ‘1924 June (Balearic Isles)’:

The composition at first put me in mind of the still from Nicolas Roeg’s ‘Man Who Fell To Earth’ that David Bowie used for his ‘Low’ album sleeve. Her hair has a sculptural feel as do her eyes. In fact, she could be made of stone and the chalky, earthy limited palette accentuates this. Her left arm is weighted compared to the right and the table elongated to hold the weight. Somehow the painter has managed to make the composition balance and work. The loose immediate brush stokes that make her mouth show an artist full of confidence lost in the rhythm of the stroke.