In the Mojave Desert, Mackenzie also found a landscape that resonated with his geometries, palette, and surfaces, and further refined his paintings. He developed works that felt more expansive and were built up using layers and textures. The desert’s open spaces and distant vistas encouraged him to consider how line and perspective could move the viewer’s eye, but also body, around a canvas. And he began to emphasize the quality of the painted surface as much as the colors, which shifted into more subdued tones characteristic of the desert. In effect, working in Joshua Tree reinforced Mackenzie’s long-time interest in the art object, which had first drawn him to ceramics as a young artist.