Artist: Shawn Mackey Title: Contemplation Medium: Original Acrylic on Canvas Signature: This one-of-a-kind work is hand-signed by the artist at the bottom of the image Image Size: Approximately 20 inches x 24 inches Framed: Unframed on Unstretched Canvas Details: This work comes with a Certificate of Authenticity Biography: Shawn Mackey was born on August 11, 1984 in Edmonton, Canada. Growing up in the long cold winters of Canada, he had ample time to draw and let his creativity flourish. Mackey’s parents, who were both teachers, would bring home boxes of scrap photocopy paper for him to draw on. He would cover hundreds of sheets with pictures of everything from Italian sports cars, to the elaborate floor plans of luxury mansions, to a variety of superheroes and cartoon characters pulled from his own imagination. From a young age, Mackey’s talent was evident and this was paired with a growing entrepreneurial spirit. At the age of eight, he was already collecting payments from his classmates for hand drawn pictures of cars. At this time he was no stranger to causing a stir with his art. He received lectures from his teachers for sneaking into the school bathrooms at recess to run his own “tattoo shop”. There he would ink his friends’ arms with colored markers. As he progressed into high school, he became increasingly bored with classes and more interested in filling his notebooks with drawings and sketches. Today, Mackey’s work combines the movement, color, and texture of the abstract background with seductive and mysterious imagery. The sensual forms are perfectly matched to images of liquor pouring into glasses or streams of smoke rising from cigars. Harking back to a by-gone era, wine and romance flows freely, as does scotch, cigars, and gambling. Together, this fusion of abstract expressionism and realism creates paintings that are filled with energy and passion.