Bethany MacKenzie (she/they) is a Queer Settler, emerging artist, and arts administrator whose practice navigates the intersections of identity, history, and land-based relationships. Currently based in eastern Ktaqmkuk, on the unceded homelands of the Beothuk and the Mi’kmaq (colonially known as Newfoundland), MacKenzie’s work seeks to unravel inherited narratives and reconstruct them through a lens of vulnerability, critique, and reclamation.
A graduate of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program (2021), MacKenzie has quickly established themselves as a dedicated contributor to the arts community.
Since 2022, they have been the Director of Union House Arts, a dynamic artist-run centre fostering creative exchange and engagement. Their influence extends further as the treasurer for ATLANTIS (The Association of Artist-Run Centres in the Atlantic) from 2022-2024. Recognized for their innovation and commitment, MacKenzie was the recipient of the Newfoundland and Labrador BMO 1st Arts Award (2021) and, more recently, the prestigious VANL-CARFAC Mary MacDonald Award (2024).
At the heart of MacKenzie’s artistic practice lies an exploration of labor, routine, and repetition as mechanisms to understand abjection in Queer identity. They conceptualize abjection as a paradoxical space—one that evokes both comfort and discomfort, familiarity and alienation. Their work deeply engages with their Scottish-Irish heritage, critically reflecting on their settler ancestry and its entanglement with the Indigenous lands they inhabit. Through this process, MacKenzie interrogates learned colonial viewpoints, confronting inherited biases while fostering a tender, empathetic understanding of self, relationships, and place.
Their debut solo exhibition, (DE)COMPOSING, marks a pivotal moment in their career, encapsulating themes of presence, decay, and transformation. The exhibition delves into the evolving relationship between MacKenzie’s body and place, considering the complex histories and legacies they both bear. Utilizing textiles, papermaking, and performance in collaboration with photographer Johnny C. Y. Lam, MacKenzie reimagines the Ghillie suit—traditionally a camouflage garment used in Scottish military contexts—as an anti-camo suit. This textile-based work emerges as a vibrant declaration of Queer-Femme existence, resisting erasure and embracing visibility. Through movement along the coast of Bonavista, MacKenzie challenges colonial and patriarchal impositions that have severed Queer-Femme identities from the land, instead carving out a space for joy, expression, and reclamation.
(DE)COMPOSING is not only a meditation on the breakdown of organic material after death but also an inquiry into how we compose ourselves in everyday life. The work oscillates between the monstrous and the tender, the grotesque and the celebratory—embodying the contradictions and fluidity inherent in Queer-Femme identity. MacKenzie’s artistic language articulates a presence that is both powerful and gentle, unsettling and comforting, reminding us of the intimate dialogue between body, history, and landscape.
As MacKenzie continues to expand their practice, their work stands as a profound testament to the resilience of Queer identity and the ongoing process of deconstructing and reimagining the self in relation to place. (DE)COMPOSING is an invitation—to witness, to reflect, and to engage with the evolving narratives of belonging, identity, and transformation.
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