Thomas Mackie

Thomas Mackie is an interdisciplinary artist and professional wrestler whose work uses fantastical imagery to explore ideas of transformation, memory, and physical sensation. Based in Malden, Massachusetts, he works out of his basement, Frankensteining doodles into living form. Thomas’s practice includes written word, image and printmaking, sculpture, installation, performance, costuming, and puppetry as a means to communicate cross-dimensionally. Informed by his experiences as a transgender man, he uses images of both human and monstrous forms to explore the meaning of the material, spiritual, and anatomical value under capitalism: a maliciously competitive system where everything is built to break.

In his wrestling career, Thomas is both a roster member and lead Archivist for the Boston League of Wicked Wrestlers, under the pseudonym Rat King. He also has collaborated extensively with artist Edward Monovich in his series, “Dadabex”, performed both at farmers markets around Boston and at the “Fog x Flo” festival in 2018, as well as his live drawing series, “Observation Transformation”, taking place at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Museum. Thomas is also a frequent educational collaborator with Cindy Smith, appearing as a repeat guest lecturer in her Queer Studies course at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and appearing in her 2021 panel “Creating Queer Space”.