Anna MACKRELL
Cattle Yards 2008
oil on canvas
76 x 76 cm
2nd May – 9th Jun 2025
Simpson Gallery
In the quiet Strathbogie Ranges in Victoria’s north-east, neatly planted pine trees define the edges of paddocks and the curve of the hills. The sky and clouds expand, creating space and light over the land marked by patches of granite and grazing sheep and cattle. “My paintings are always better when I’m in Bogie” Anna explains. A Well Structured Nature presents a retrospective of expressive landscape and flower paintings inspired by the region that she loves.
Place and belonging, mood, colour, tone and light are key concepts and elements in Anna’s practice which can be seen in her works — a tree in the night, a row of pine trees, a boat stuck in a dam on a summer’s day, evening light and the shadows cast by trees along an empty road. Anna’s paintings are intimate portrayals of the region that she calls home but her creative practice is informed by a broader aim to explore multiple ways of representing the stillness, isolation and ‘slow beauty’ of the rural Australian landscape and life.
Recently, Anna has been inspired by the 360-degree vista of the surrounding Strathbogie region from the summit of Mt Wombat. She takes her easel out into the landscape to create large plein air drawings which form the basis for her paintings. She connects with the landscape and captures the subtleties of the land and its elements. The paintings of Mt Wombat capture variations in the ever-changing and shifting landscape by exploring the interplay of light, shadow and atmospheric conditions that are present. “I never tire of being up here, it’s always different and beautiful. It’s hard not to feel a sense of wonder and awe when I look out into the landscape. You get a real sense of the expansiveness of this ancient landscape. The terrain is as varied as it is captivating,” she says.
In her flower paintings and still life arrangements, Anna works quickly to capture short-lived blooms before engaging in a longer process of working from intuition, memory and photographs. The works emerge from continual experimentation with colours, shapes and forms, and Anna’s love of gardens and natural life.
Anna’s artistic practice is an ongoing creative project to depict a private and complex view, of a well structured nature that is symbolic of the rural landscape and its people.
About the Artist:
Anna Mackrell’s childhood on a farm in Strathbogie, and living and working in Euroa has created strong artistic and emotional ties to the region. After completing a Diploma of Art and Design at Wangaratta College of TAFE in 1990, she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from Monash University in 1993. In 1998 Anna participated in the New York Drawing Marathon, conducted by Graham Nickson, Dean of the New York Art School; and in 2021 undertook an Artist Residency in Oatlands, Tasmania.
Anna exhibits locally and interstate, and has taught drawing, life drawing and acrylic painting in Western Australia and Victoria to a diverse demographic of students. Anna’s medium of choice is oil paint but she also creates collages from papers that she has painted, and these are sometimes used as a reference for new paintings.