Paintings by Shawn Mackey

Shawn Mackey was born on August 11, 1984 in Edmonton, Canada. Growing up in the long cold winters of Canada, he had ample time to draw and let his creativity flourish. Mackey’s parents, who were both teachers, would bring home boxes of scrap photocopy paper for him to draw on.

He would cover hundreds of sheets with pictures of everything from Italian sports cars, to the elaborate floor plans of luxury mansions, to a variety of superheroes and cartoon characters pulled from his own imagination.

From a young age, Mackey’s talent was evident and this was paired with a growing entrepreneurial spirit. At the age of eight, he was already collecting payments from his classmates for hand drawn pictures of cars. At this time he was no stranger to causing a stir with his art. He received lectures from his teachers for sneaking into the school bathrooms at recess to run his own “tattoo shop”. There he would ink his friends’ arms with colored markers. As he progressed into high school, he became increasingly bored with classes and more interested in filling his notebooks with drawings and sketches.

The Gallerist

Paintings by Shawn Mackey

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