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Chelsea Dawn MacKay

@cm.studio_art

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BDes Emily Carr University.
MFA Simon Fraser University School of Contemporary Arts ୭˚. ᵎᵎ｡🧷𖦹°‧ other account @jellidude

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Live Lie Die ~ Hand beaded and quilted silk pillow. A part of my solo exhibition titled: Borrowed Intimacy a retrospective of heartbreak and other injuries. Originally shown as part of an installation that included a bed with a digitally printed tapestry. by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

Faithless the Reason I Stayed and the Reason I Left ~ from my solo exhibition Borrowed Intimacy a retrospective of heartbreak and other injuries. Enlarged concert ticket, silver bubble wrap, painted and torched wood frame. by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way ~ human hair extensions sewn to painted over landscape, torched wooden frame A piece from my solo exhibition Borrowed Intimacy A retrospective of heartbreak and other injuries by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

Dolorum Ipsum Docet 001, acrylic and enamel on canvas 4’ x 3’ part of my solo exhibition Borrowed Intimacy a retrospective of heartbreak and other injuries by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

Tres Canes Soli ~ photo converted to ASCII, framed with leather barbed wire. A piece from my solo exhibition Borrowed Intimacy a retrospective of heartbreak and other injuries by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

Untitled ~ chromed framed painting, leather, metal hoop hardware by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

Disarm ~ 17th century needlepoint, enamel paint, soap, metal zip ties. Part of my solo exhibition titled Borrowed Intimacy a retrospective of heartbreak and other injuries. by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

Congrats Chels @cm.studio_art on the opening of Borrowed Intimacies--what a compelling window into the agony and ecstacy of being a girl 🦢 🥀 .
Up now at @fingerprint_gallery!

#confessionalart #contemporaryart #girlhood #nostalgia by @cm.studio_art

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5 months ago

Fingerprint Gallery is thrilled to announce “Borrowed Intimacy - a retrospective of heartbreak and injuries” by Chelsea MacKay. Join us for the opening reception on May 16th from 6 - 9pm!  

About the Exhibition:

Borrowed Intimacy: A Retrospective of Love and Other Injuries is a solo exhibition that traces through past relationships, part autobiographical, part confessional. The work is a form of catharsis, moving through love, heartbreak, and damaged friendship. Across a series of paintings, a large sculptural installation, etched mirror, video, and smaller sculptures, the exhibition becomes an emotional archive.  

Drawing on strategies reminiscent of Tracey Emin’s candid language and Martin Margiela’s deconstructive approach, the works treat process as both archive and excavation. Frames are scorched or painted white, simultaneously revealing, obscuring, and preserving what lies beneath, from a landscape to a 17th-century needlepoint. Acts of repair recur through materials like cloth, enamel, and metal straps, suggesting both damage and healing, while sewn hair extensions mark the end of a friendship. Hand beading and photo transfers add intimate, tactile layers to a large-scale installation cataloguing past relationships.  

These varied materials, objects, and techniques come together to retell a personal history. Creating a tension between concealment and exposure, damage and preservation, intimacy and distance, proposing love itself as something continually borrowed.

About the artist:

Chelsea MacKay (b. 1980, Hornby Island; lives and works in Vancouver) is an artist of Anishinaabe and Scottish descent. She holds a Bachelor of Design in Industrial Design from Emily Carr University, studied joinery at BCIT, and recently completed an MFA at Simon Fraser University. Her work is in sculptural installation, painting, and video.

Often drawing on the aesthetics of the late 1990s and early 2000s alongside surrealism, Classical, Renaissance, Baroque, and religious iconography, her work functions as a vessel for memory and nostalgia, connecting intimate experience to broader cultural narratives through strategies of pastiche and satire. taken in Fingerprint Gallery by @cm.studio_art

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6 months ago

Video Installation titled Fantasia Field ~ link to video in bio if you are curious. Edited from found footage filmed in 1993 in the UK. Photo by @racheltophamphotography by @cm.studio_art

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a year ago

Klub ~ a sculpture from my MFA Exhibition titled REMnants of the Rave. Photo by @racheltophamphotography taken in Audain Gallery by @cm.studio_art

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a year ago

Mitsubishi Madonna a sculpture from my MFA exhibition titled REMnants of the Rave. Photo by @racheltophamphotography taken in Audain Gallery by @cm.studio_art

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a year ago