William Mackinnon is an artist known for his evocative landscapes, blending abstraction and realism to explore themes of isolation, nature, and memory. One of Australia's leading contemporary painters, he launches a new book and collection in Ibiza on Saturday.&nbsp;

'I had an unusual path as I&rsquo;m a self-taught artist. I come from a very creative family - my mother and grandfather were both painters &ndash; but there was a healthy dose of realism instilled in me too. When I was younger, I took jobs where I could work in art but also get paid. I worked as an artist&rsquo;s assistant and for a print maker. I worked at Christie&rsquo;s while I was at university. And then I enrolled at the Chelsea School of Art and Design in London as a mature student when I was 29. In hindsight I&rsquo;m glad, because I cobbled together my own education which gave me a unique language.

I spent two years working with remote indigenous communities in central Australia and the Kimberly. I was curious to spend time with senior Indigenous artists before they died. Aboriginal art traditions date back 50 or 60 thousand years and because they have a non-written culture, all their history and stories are passed down through songs and paintings. I thought, &lsquo;Why am I travelling around the world when there's this unbelievably rich and fascinating culture in my backyard and I&rsquo;ve hardly seen any of it? There was a real sense of coming to terms with a very contested and problematic history, which is still being grappled with. I worked as a field officer at Papunya Tula, the first indigenous art centre, and I would spend three weeks out of every four in these remote communities mixing paint for Indigenous artists and watching them work. Learning from them. The elders would ask me, &lsquo;Why are you here?&rsquo; And it was an interesting question because it's like, why are you somewhere which isn't where you're from? It&rsquo;s been a narrative that has continued to inform my work.

Ibiza can be quite floaty, and I need to stay very, very disciplined with my work schedule to combat that. Artists tend to be quite emotional and easily affected by their surroundings. I keep a strict five-day working week and that helps me to process how I&rsquo;m feeling. I counter the waves of people and party energy by just getting my head down and working. It&rsquo;s good for the work and it's good for me. And it adds up - painting is not some magical flash of inspiration. It's an accumulation of good hours. Being here has been good for my work because I&rsquo;m close to a lot of art centres like London and Basel, but I have relative anonymity and freedom. There are two distinct phases of creativity for me: being open and stimulated and then carrying out the work. My work is really an expression of me grappling with my experience of the world, with something chaotic &ndash; like Ibiza &ndash; and trying to create some sort of order around it. It&rsquo;s my own distorted reality coming through.'

The Second Mountain 220 x 480 cm

William Mackinnon will launch his own self-titled, collector's edition book on Saturday evening in Ibiza alongside a journalist-led Q+A. 
Please <a href="mailto:mackinnon.wilbur@gmail.com">email </a>to be added to the guestlist.

People of Ibiza: William Mackinnon

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