MacKay (b.1991) is a West Australian figurative oil painter. Grounded in rigorous technical training and sustained engagement with art history, her practice has evolved to examine how representation, spectatorship and value operate within contemporary visual culture.

MacKay’s portrait of actor David Wenham Through the Looking Glass won the 2019 Archibald Packing Room Prize, drawing national attention to her practice. A 2021 online poll for ‘Most Popular Archibald Portrait in 100 Years’ conducted by ABC iview drew over 250,000 votes, with Through the Looking Glass winning.

MacKay’s highly disciplined style of large-scale hyperrealism portraiture was honed over ten years. Her work, some taking a year to complete, have been presented nationwide and acquired by major private and public Australian and New Zealand collections. Commissions include Mme Kira Bousloff OAM (WA Ballet founder) and publications About Face by Amber Creswell (Thames Hudson) and The Trailblazers by Howard Eaton.

MacKay’s early fixation on populist photorealistic painting began as a strategy for managing her dyslexia and non-attentive ADHD; a refuge from the intimidating world of art academia that culminated in a 2022 show Retrospective. But a desire to steer her practice into more conceptual territory led her to undertake a two-year cognitive training program through the Eaton Arrowsmith Academy in order to resume her Curtin University BFA degree. This awakened MacKay’s critical interrogation of photorealism; her unconscious bias towards painting “high-value” source imagery to justify the intense labour of photorealism. In response, her latest project Social Realism is a compelled re-contextualising of centuries-old formal painting techniques and materiality to transpose “low-value” digital images from 2000’s era Facebook accounts. Engaged in the open-ended question - what constitutes an image worth painting? - her practice explores how painters respond to visual cultures shaped by digital technologies and societal perceptions of value in images.

Since 2025, MacKay’s work presented at Spring1883 Art Fair (Melbourne), Minor Attractions Art Fair (London), LAILA gallery (Sydney), Wynne Prize (New South Wales and Victoria), PICA Quick Response Residency (Perth), Lawson Flats (Perth), Melbourne Art Fair and Sidney Myer (Melbourne). She is currently developing work for a new project titled Exhibitionists, which will be showcased at Minor Attractions (London) in October 2026.

RESIDENCIES

2025 Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Quick Response Residency (WA)

2022 The Mark Artist in Residence, The State Buildings (WA)

SELECT COMMISSIONS

2026 Creasy Collections (WA)

2023 Warders Hotel (block 2), 32 pc collection, Prendiville Group (WA)

2022 Kira Abricossova Bousloff OAM, bequeathed to the West Australian Ballet, The Landsmith Collection (WA)

2020 Warders Hotel & Emily Taylor Restaurant, 28 pc collection, Matthew Crawford Architect, Prendiville Group (WA)

PUBLIC | PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

2025 M&H Bombara (WA)

2024 John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University (WA)

2024 Creasy Collection (WA)

2023 M Burton (WA)

2022 West Australian Ballet, bequeathed by A&J Burt (WA)

2019 K&C Burton (WA)

PRESS | PUBLICATIONS

2025 ‘In the Studio with Tessa MacKay’, interview with Miranda Johnson, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (WA)   

2025 ‘Tessa MacKay Brings Our Digital Worlds Together’, interview with Mark Chu, To be Magazine

2025 The Trailblazers, Howard Eaton, Ed.M & Antoinette Commins, Tellwell Publishing (AU, B.C, CA)

2024 About Face, Amber Creswell, Thames & Hudson (UK, AUS)

2024 Mandorla Artist Talk, alongside Ross Potter, Sam Bloor, Sarah Elson and Erin Coates, Holmes à Court Gallery (WA)

2022 The Mark, Artist talk alongside Katie West and Annika Kristensen, The State Buildings (WA)

2022 The Mark, Artist talk alongside Ali Bodycoat, The State Buildings (WA)

2022 Retrospective artist talk, Sheila Foundation, PS Art Space (WA)

2022 Art & Soul, Sunday Times Magazine, Ben O’Shea (WA)

2020 At Home With Tessa MacKay, Emma Pegrum, Fabric Quarterly

2019 Late Night Conversations, Artist Talk alongside Jude Rae and Zan Rowe, Art Gallery of New South Wales (NSW)

2017 The Archibald First Strokes, Arts documentary series alongside Nicholas Harding, Yvette Coppersmith, Nick Stathopoulos, George Gittoes, Tim Storrier, Jason Phu and Wendy Sharpe, Mint Pictures (NSW)