JOHN MACKENZIE - SCULPTOR

Retired architect born in Aberfeldy Perthshire of mixed Scottish Polish parents and spent my early life living in St Andrews Fife on the east coast of Scotland.

I moved down south around 25 years ago to take up a post at Derby City Council working on large scale group repair housing improvement schemes.

While working in Derby I met my wife and after retirement we moved over to live in East Anglia in the village of Doddington which is near the town of March.

My work is strongly influenced by the beautiful countryside and seascapes around the coast of Fife which closely resemble the fishing villages in Cornwall.

I have many fond memories of sitting on the harbourside of many of these Fife fishing villages watching the boats coming in and landing their catches.

The happy memories of watching the fish being unloaded and being taken to be sold by the hard working local fishermen inspire my work.

I try to capture the wonderful variety and beauty of the different types of fish by creating metal replicas of the fish.

The metals I use include stainless steel, brass and copper, and are normally sourced from recycled remnant pieces of metal which would normally be scrapped.

Once the fish are created and engraved I mount the pieces onto lathe turned hand finished plinths, which are sourced from windfall timber tree branches.