Meet Mackenzie Thorpe, the official artist for the Tour de Yorkshire

From as far back as he can remember he was always had a pencil in his hand. “As a kid I would sit and draw at home. I’d draw anywhere, if I was outside I’d use a stone to draw on the pavement,” he says.#

And yet it’s never that straightforward. As one of seven children brought up in a working-class family in Middlesbrough, the idea of him making a living as an artist seemed fanciful. And for a long time it was.

For the past 30 years, though, he’s been an artist and sculptor, building an impressive body of work that is not only popular in this country but in places like the United States and Japan where he has a big following.

When he was offered the chance to become the official artist of the Tour de Yorkshire he jumped at the chance. Though the initial challenge was to come up with a theme for his work. “At the launch I was thinking ‘right, what am I going to focus on?’ and then Christian Prudhomme [Tour de France race director] made a speech where he said Yorkshire’s landscape was ‘beautiful and brutal’ and I thought ‘that’s it.’”

He has created four new works celebrating the tour entitled: Yorkshire Coast, Over Moor and Dale, Riding with Grandad and The Boy Without a Bike. “For me the whole county is a never-ending inspiration, the dramatic skies, the dales and the moors, are like nowhere I have ever been,” he says.

“When I was thinking about the images, I knew I wanted to create a collection which also reflected the broader impact the race has on people. So alongside images of peak fitness cyclists speeding through our glorious hills dales and coast, there is (for instance) Riding with Grandad which shows a child in a Yorkshire town learning to ride a bicycle, aided by their grandfather. Or The Boy Without a Bike; a lone child standing watching the racers speed past and dreaming of the day that he too might ride like the wind on a bicycle all of his own. This is what the race is all about for me.”

Thorpe is based in Richmond, home to the Arthaus Gallery which he established in 1989, and while Yorkshire is the inspiration behind many of his paintings, prints and sculptures, it’s Middlesbrough where his artistic talents were forged.

As a young child he loved drawing and painting. “Being dyslexic had a lot to do with it. I couldn’t spell so at school I’d sit at the back of the class and draw, so instead of learning algebra for 15 years I learnt how to use a pencil.”

He remembers a class trip to York when he was eight. “We went all round the city and when we came back the teacher said, ‘Mackenzie I want you to draw York.’ So I drew a picture of York.”

A couple of years later he sold his first drawing. “I was asked to draw a picture of Christ by a local church for the May Procession. All I had was a biro and some paper and I did it – and I got paid five bob.”

Despite his obvious talent, he didn’t think he could make a living from it. “It was just something I did, like walking or breathing, I never considered I could do it as a career.”

He left school at 15, working in a bakery and a warehouse before his father got him a job as a labourer at Smith’s shipyard on Teesside. “He was a labourer, too, and we’d play cards together and nick over the railway line to go for a pint.”

After later being made redundant from the shipyard, he went to art classes at night school, having been encouraged by his friends. From here he went to Cleveland College of Art. “They didn’t do Fine Art in Middlesbrough, they did textiles, ceramics and photography – things that could get you a job. But I wanted to paint.”

He then earned a place at Byam Shaw School of Art in London and after finishing his studies he got a job as an artist working with children in Hammersmith where he stayed for the next seven years.

In 1989, he and his wife, Susan, moved to Richmond where Mackenzie set up an art shop. “We sold art materials, only they weren’t selling.”

So he started producing his own art postcards and prints which tourists started buying. Demand for his work has steadily grown to the point where he’s become one of the country’s most recognised artists.

His work remains tied to his working-class roots. “I don’t go outside for my inspiration, I go in. I see that six year-old kid on the street and think, ‘what’s he seeing, what’s his perspective?’ and that’s where I start.”

And he relishes the physical process of creating something new. “I use my hands. I’ve never used a computer in my work. I use hand-made pastels that go on paper that’s made by hand and my skin and bone is all that touches it.

“When I’m making my sculptures you can see my fingermarks and I think people like that... because it’s real.”

To find out more about his work visit www.mackenziethorpe.net