Et Sic In Infinitum creates an optical illusion that is the painting equivalent to building a tower in quicksand. MacKinven’s architectural form sits Bastille-like centre stage, a fortress of concrete hues, striated and stacked, thick impasto and sluices of thin wash giving it a weathered industrial appearance. Crowned by off-kilter tiles, with fierce angled trajectory, the staircase appears to be continuously building itself in a desperate race for its own survival. MacKinven’s composition, with its constructed deception of mass and weight, is undermined by its own foundation: a terrain of delicately diaphanous oil-mist hues scarcely covering an under-painted grid. The faint linear squares instantly flat-pack the painting, revealing all as mere plan or projection; their endless repetition an application of measurable maths, disproving the assertion of chaotic geometry.