Boreal Smoldering, Banff & Nelson Series: These abstracted scenes evoke mystery among the mists and trees; all the while putting forward ideas of sublime other worlds, enigmatic endings and new beginnings. The artist integrates painting and photography into one image to go beyond the pictorial experience and play with the juxtaposition of reality and illusion. The works are based on spontaneous snap-shots gathered from his studio or daily walks. He then edits and manipulates the image before painting and drawing into it with pastel, ink, charcoal and wax.

This work is not literal landscape.

Harding MacKay engages with drama and light, the clash of weather systems (pushing plausibility), references to 19th C. Romantic landscape techniques, in addition to employing exaggerated form by compressing the visual information into a pre-determined format. Within a 21st C. context, this powerful combination invites evocations of moody sublimity, contemplation of the art history of landscape, as well as introspection of our reactions to environment – dramatic or otherwise.

"I have always been attracted to transitions that seem to occur with the clash of weather systems and the formidable clouds and dramatic skies that result. These various series are based on observations and images I gather. I then transform the digital sources into the traditional materials of charcoal, ink wash, chalk pastel, oil pastel, wax, and oil on paper.”

Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, he has been a practicing artist in various media since graduating from the Nova Scotia College of Art in 1967. Mixed media portrait, landscape, figurative and video works have occupied a major part of his interests through his artistic career. Harding-McKay served as a war artist with the Canadian Department of National Defense on two occasions: Somalia in 1993 and Afghanistan in 2002. Over the span of his visual arts career he has accumulated extensive and multifaceted credentials as a professional artist, gallery director, curator and arts administrator. He served as visiting artist, resident artist and lecturer at several Canadian universities, colleges of art, public galleries and national conferences, including the Banff Centre.

He was awarded numerous artist grants by the Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Alberta Foundation of the Arts. In 2008, the artist was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA) and received a Kitchener Waterloo Visual Arts Award.

The artist’s solo and group exhibition history is extensive, both nationally and internationally. His work is found in public collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, National Gallery of Canada, Canadian War Museum, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Art Gallery of Alberta and Kunstmuseum Bern Switzerland as well as corporations and private collections in Canada, the United States, Australia, UK, New Zealand, Bermuda, China and Switzerland. He has created four public art works located in Kitchener and Toronto.