Interview with Artist Mac Collins

The work I have created captures the form of a Scute (the bony scales that make up the spiny back of a crocodile). The crocodile is a visually intriguing creature. I am drawn to symmetry and repetition, and so their interlocking puzzle of scales is an interesting subject to study, dissect and sculpt. This piece is carved from sycamore, which has been whitened, waxed and polished. The sculpture was part of a body of work that explores the transmission and distortion of memory. Stemming from a story told to me by my uncle of crocodiles camouflaged in rivers and mangroves in Jamaica, the crocodile has become a symbol in my practice for the illusory nature of memory. Much like trying to focus on a distant memory, the crocodile is hard to distinguish from the plant matter and debris of the waters they drift in. As part of this body of work, I have made several abstracted crocodile backs that are mosaics made up of many individually carved scutes. The first, a large mosaic of cast aluminium scales, was shown for Déjà Vu at Bold Tendencies 2025. Piecing these scales together to form a larger mosaic is like the experience of attempting to define a fragmented or fading memory. 

I have presented work in various contexts, though this is quite a different environment from the exposed rooftop of Bold Tendencies or the white walls and high ceilings of the British Pavilion in Venice. It’s different to the barren spaces my work tends to occupy. In the past, I have attempted to alter these white spaces, like my show Miscue at Slugtown last year, which turned the gallery into an abstracted pub environment. But there is no need to attempt to fabricate any sense of familiarity here. The work is immediately contextualised in this eclectic array of art and objects, each embedded with histories and stories. Each artefact connects directly to a different time, place and human story. I am interested in how objects and art become vessels for these stories and memories, and though the memories may warp, and the stories become skewed, the physical artefacts endure here, to be reinterpreted down the line. This is a domestic space, where the work can be experienced slowly and intentionally. It is a space where the work can also slip into the periphery and be overlooked and missed altogether. It takes moments of coincidence to spot something unseen in the quiet chaos of this collection.