catherine mackey

Bio: My work is about the urban experience, in particular the neglected and abandoned buildings which can be found around the edges of cities. The utilitarian architectural style employed in these buildings offers a simple honesty, refreshingly devoid of the decorative trickery found on residential and commercial structures.
For the past few years I have studied the working pier structures around San Francisco - buildings which are rapidly disappearing under a wave of urban renewal rolling over the city. I have developed a multi-panel process to convey the architectural repetition of these long buildings extending out into the bay. Recent work shifts the viewer’s gaze downwards to the structure which holds the pier buildings over the water. The decaying wooden posts, with their stains and salt lines acquired from years of being exposed to the tides and the elements, suggest a beautiful yet worrying frailty. It is only when we peer deeper into the shadows beneath the piers that we are reassured by the concrete sub-structure which is now holding these buildings up.