An unassuming and genial man with a strong affinity for the land, Macqueen was drawn to the undulating landscape of the Darling Downs and to the coastal region adjoining Moreton Bay which provided the principal subjects for his work. His watercolours are noted for their simplicity, and for their lyrical and decorative qualities. Shape, structure and colour played a dominant role in his art, engendering a bold and dynamic expression which infused vitality into the prevailing academicism of Australian water-colour painting. Macqueen's approach—which strove to reduce the landscape to a formalized, semi-abstract pattern of translucent washes—closely aligned his output with that of leading early-modernist painters. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, he attempted to render the landscape in a more direct and expressive manner, accentuating design and rhythm as the dominant elements in his work.
