Bio
Rachel Mackay is a multidisciplinary Australian artist whose work spans painting, sculpture and moving-image. Central to her work is the female body–most often her own–used as both subject and medium. Her body becomes a shifting site; simultaneously personal and collective, knowable and unknowable, human and other. Through this lens, Mackay explores identity and embodiment as fluid and permeable.
Mackay has exhibited widely in Sydney and her work is held in both national and international collections. She has been a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize in 2022 and 2024, and is a finalist in the 2025 Environmental Art & Design Prize (Art Category) at Manly Art Gallery & Museum. Mackay completed her Master of Fine Art at the National Art School in 2024, with her work from the Postgraduate Show featured in Art Collector magazine.
Born in London, Mackay moved to Sydney in 1999 and later lived in Copenhagen from 2011 to 2016 following the completion of her undergraduate studies. She holds a Bachelor of Design from the University of Sydney and a Master of Fine Art from the National Art School of Australia. Mackay currently lives and works on Gadigal Land (Sydney). She has been selected as a 2026 artist in residence at Woollahra Gallery in Sydney.
