‘What does an oracle look like?’ is an exhibition of paintings, prints, and books by Perri MacKenzie, a Scottish artist based in Brussels. The exhibition is an extension of the artist’s début publication What does an oracle look like? (2025). The exhibition uses the homonymous book as inspiration for the creation of new and existing works.
For Komplot, Perri MacKenzie will present a new installation of large-scale collage paintings on paper depicting the animal fountains of Sainte-Catherine, Brussels (sculpted by Georges Houstont and Godefroid Devreese, c.1895). For MacKenzie, the water gushing out of the fountain’s mouths is an energetic materialisation of voice, which is further amplified by the unruly dimensionality of the paintings. The exhibition additionally brings together drawings and screenprints alongside a presentation of her book. A graphical way of thinking pervades the works in the exhibition: an exploration into the leaky spaces of image, line, text, and voice.
All printed works produced at Frans Masereel Centrum and Academie Beeldende Kunst Anderlecht.
What does an oracle look like?
Publication by Perri MacKenzie (Leaky Press, 2025).
If I look at the night sky while aching with desire, do the constellations I draw bend towards my longing? What if this urgency, which feels so personal and interior, was actually a force out there that I’ve caught, like a cold?
What does an oracle look like? gathers essays and drawings made by Perri MacKenzie between 2020 and 2024, themed loosely around pottery painting and vocal expression. The drawings, rendered in splashy India ink and collage, range from expressive sketches to theatrical still lives and experimental bandes dessinées. The book presents for the first time the essay ‘Cathedral’. Part memoir, part literary/sonic investigation, it meditates on the vocal texture of a Hollywood actor.
‘In Perri’s firm prose, voices resonate from ceramic amphorae, studio speakers, Claire Danes, and the occasional butt-cheek on the move. Her book excavates the living voice from its material remains, an archaeological miracle.’ – Becket MWN, artist and writer, Amsterdam.
‘What does an oracle look like? is an inquiry, a celebration and an open invitation to engage with Perri’s ‘oracular method’ … I received it as a whole new manual for how to heed, translate and retranslate the messages and materials of the world.’ – Kate Briggs, essayist and translator, Rotterdam
What does an oracle look like? is written and drawn by Perri MacKenzie, with design by Ilke Gers. It is printed as an offset edition of 400 by robstolk Amsterdam. Published by Leaky Press, 2025.
Perri MacKenzie is a Scottish painter and writer based in Brussels. Her artistic production comprises paintings, drawings, screenprints, and texts. A fascination with the material world and how it is interpreted permeates her work. Her bold and immersive compositions invite us to ‘read’ them, to engage in pictorial puzzles and textural fantasy. There is a theatrical energy in her expressive works on paper; at the same time an editorial attitude collages her works into multi-part publications and exhibitions.
