MacKay (b.1991) is a photo/hyperreal painter based in Perth/Boorloo, WA. 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, which included her 2019 Archibald Packing Room Prize winning portrait of actor David Wenham Through the Looking Glass. But a desire to steer her practice into more conceptual territory led MacKay to undertake a two-year cognitive training program through the Eaton Arrowsmith Academy to resume her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Curtin University.

This chapter 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 ongoing project SOCIAL REALISM is a compelled re-contextualising of centuries-old painting techniques and materiality (formalist elements of Classical Realism, 17th-century Dutch Golden Age painters, and 19th-century Neo Impressionists) 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. As an expansion of SOCIAL REALISM, MacKay’s latest work, EXHIBITIONISTS, contemplates the reception of iconic artworks in an era of shortening attention spans and AI-generated content, interrogating the role and function of art in a mediated world where digital images have substantially replaced embodied human experience. Presentations include Minor Attractions Art Fair (London), LAILA gallery (NSW), Wynne Prize (NSW, VIC), PICA Quick Response Residency & Lawson Flats (WA), Melbourne Art Fair & Sidney Myer (VIC). Acquisitions include the John Curtin Gallery (WA) & Artbank (VIC).

Residencies

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

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

Select Commissions & Collections

2026 Science Ball 24/9/10 By Andy, Artbank (AU)

2026 Private commission, Creasy Collections (WA)

2025 Gladiators, Vikings, and all Sorts…..jpg, Guan Ho & Hawke (NZ)

2025 France_09.jpg, R. Glindemann (WA)

2025 Final Sunset on the Beach… Bye Holiday!.jpg, J. Lam-Po Tang (NSW)

2025 Everywhere Man, M&H Bombara (WA)

2024 John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University (WA)

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

2023 Private commission, M Burton (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)

2019 Through the Looking Glass, K&C Burton (WA)

Press & Publications

2026 Painting a Moment, Camilla Wagstaff, Art Guide Australia, May/June (AU)

2026 Objects and Imagination, Dr David Sequeira, Director of the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery (VIC)

2026 Social Realism, in-conversation with Hannah Mathews, Director/CEO of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Lawson Flats (WA)

2025 ‘In the Studio with Tessa MacKay’, interview with Miranda Johnson, Public Program & Studio Manager at the 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 with Ross Potter, Sam Bloor, Sarah Elson & Erin Coates, Holmes à Court Gallery (WA)

2022 The Mark, artist talk with Katie West & Annika Kristensen, Curator & writer, The State Buildings (WA)

2022 The Mark, in-conversation with 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 with 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)