Madeline Mackay was born in 1989 and graduated in 2012 from Duncan and Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Currently she is living and working in Edmonton, Canada, where she studied printmaking at the University of Alberta.


In 2013 she was awarded a travel grant by the Royal Scottish Society of painters in watercolour and travelled to a traditional community in Northern Canada, Trout Lake in the Northwest Territories, where a print- making workshop was established.

Madeleine taught drawing and printmaking both at the University of Alberta and in Sambaa K’e, NT, where she was artist-in-residence in 2014.

Madeleine already has many national and international awards to her name including the Young Person's Category Award, David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the Year.

Madeline uses mainly drawing and printmaking, extending these media to incorporate land-based and sculptural work. She grew up in Northern Scotland in land that is untamed, unpopulated and bleak. She uses the imagery of wild birds to express the wildness of the landscape and her appreciation of its natural rhythms and qualities.

'There is something that pulls one towards Madeline Mackay's work. It's not just the marks created by etchings and prints, which I love for their timeless quality. There is something else too, another form of maturity in her work, which I think comes from her Caithness upbringing. Animals and archaeology are everywhere there. There is ithe great skill and determination of the artist too.' Tony Davidson