A travelling scholarship took McKenzie Smith to Paris, where he met the Japanese artist Kenzo Okada and encountered Zen philosophy. An oriental sense of balance and calligraphic finesse has been a feature of his work ever since.
McKenzie Smith has work in many public collections including the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art; the University of Glasgow; the Fleming Collection; the Government Art Collection; Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth Art Galleries and in private collections in the UK, Europe, North America and Japan.