Dani McKenzie | Field Notes
OLSEN GALLERY
24 September – 18 October, 2025
With a penchant for playing detective, and the curiosity of a busybody besides, Dani McKenzie is a keen observer of the everyday rituals and strange intimacies of city life. Based on personal photographs taken whilst out in the field, her paintings oAer a romanticised exploration of place and the strangers who inhabit it.
Across the show, McKenzie deliberately plays with scale and technique, inviting the viewer to lean in close to the smaller paintings, while other canvases loom large enough to engulf you. From a distance, they appear almost photographic. Up close, however, McKenzie’s fast, loose brushwork is more perceptive than precise: details get lost in paint, edges dissolve, and the eye is left to fill in the gaps.
The viewer engages in an act of secondhand people-watching, becoming both onlooker and unwitting accomplice, peering through lit-up windows to catch glimpses of the lives unfolding on the other side of the glass. It’s a slightly nefarious kind of observation. But then again, who doesn’t like to people-watch?
