Lucinda McDonald
Lucinda McDonald
Connections
7 feb. – 4 apr. 2020
A Southern Highlands based artist born and trained in the United Kingdom with childhood memories of growing up in South Africa, Lucinda McDonald’s practice is informed by her skill in welding, her acute appreciation of revitalising existing forms, and a similar sense of displacement from living in various countries. Constructing sculptures from offcuts and discarded pieces of steel, McDonald works instinctively to reclaim and rejuvenate these seemingly unwanted objects, creating subconscious yet harmonious tension between movement and stasis, colour, line and weight. Her exhibition in Gallery 2 at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery is an exploration of the rhizome of experiences, memories and interactions that have brought McDonald to a refined and contemplative moment in time.
‘Connections’ is a body of work that is expressive of both the physical, emotional and psychological in-betweens that are crucial to the development of the object, as well as the artist. Having been born in the United Kingdom, McDonald moved with her family to South Africa at the age of five, staying for over thirteen years. At nineteen years of age, she returned to the UK, living in London and Bath to study visual arts and photography, eventually attending the Chelsea School of Art and Design. Across the road from Tate Britain, and a stone’s throw away from Saatchi Gallery, this was physically fertile ground for a young artistic mind to grow in. Her fellow alumni being female sculptors such as Rebecca Warren and Helen Chadwick, McDonald’s intense dedication to form seems almost inherited through osmosis, but the connections are present.
In 1995, McDonald extended her skills by attending a fabrication and welding course at a North London college. She then worked as a welder for various fabrication workshops, assisting in the production of works from the Young British Artist collective. Her move to Australia in 2001 brought on a multitude of new connections – an antipodean shift in physical space, a cultural shift, and most importantly, a shift towards focusing on her own practice.
Describing her process, McDonald tells of branching out in multiple directions, often working on multiple projects at any given time, before one thought pattern emerges and grows into a strong, well-investigated body of work. Her wall-hung pieces developed between 2019 and 2020 are an example of these investigations – careful consideration of the way individual objects work together aesthetically create something new, with its own unique rhythm and characteristics. For work that is highly abstract, the sensitivity to colour and repetition of form eludes to an almost synesthetic experience, with tones and shapes becoming melodious.
With her expanded artistic practice encompassing collage and painting processes, McDonald utilises a broad aesthetic approach to composition across disciplines and dimensions. Furthermore, her ability to commit to this aesthetic, and express it gracefully through a medium that requires negotiation and concentration is exemplary of her willpower as an artist – something carefully honed through experience since adolescence on the other side of the world.
Exhibiting alongside Alex Seton, this is McDonald’s inaugural solo showing at the Gallery. She was a finalist in the 2018 Goulburn Art Award and has shown her work across the region in a variety of interior and exterior spaces. ‘Connections’ opens on the 7th of February and runs until the 4th of April 2020.
Hannah Gee
EDUCATION
2016- 2017 Online Masters in Visual Arts (part- time). Fed Uni. Victoria
1995-1997 Fabrication & welding, City & Guilds 2290, College of North West London, UK
1991-1994 BA (Hons), Public Art & Design 2:1, Chelsea College of Art & Design, London Institute, UK
1990-1991 Foundation Course in Art & Design, Bath College of Higher Education, UK
1985 Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa
1984 Matriculation, Durban Girl’s College, South Africa
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020 Connections Goulburn Regional Gallery. Gallery 2
2018 Paper. Steel. Paint Bowral Art Gallery
2017 Studio exhibition. Moss Vale (Southern Highlands Art Trail)
2013 Red Tree Café .Bowral.
2002 Fabrication Tricycle Theatre, London
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 BOCCA Bowral Art gallery
2023 Bowral Sculpture Prize
2022 Fishers Ghost Award Finalist
2022 Hornsby Art Prize finalist
2022 Goulburn Art Award Finalist
2022 BOCCA Bowral Art Gallery
2022 Bowral Art Gallery Sculpture prize
2021 Fishers Ghost Award Finalist
2020 Seven Group online exhibition SHAC Robertson.
2020 Goulburn Art Award. Finalist
2020 Tom Bass Sculpture Prize. Sydney. Finalist
2020 Bowral Art Gallery Sculpture prize
2020 Talking With Sculptures. SHAC.Robertson
2019 Kim Shannon More Than Shadows Milk Factory Gallery
2019 Sculptures at Killalea
2019 Bowral Art Gallery Still Life Prize
2019 Bowral Art Gallery Sculpture prize.
2018 Fishers Ghost Finalist
2018 Sculptures at Killalea
2018 Hillview Sculpture Biennial. Sutton Forest
2018 Goulburn Regional Gallery Art Award .Finalist
2018 Bowral Art Gallery Sculpture Prize.
2018 Tom Bass Sculpture Prize Finalist
2017 Kangaroo Valley Sculpture Prize ..
2017 BDAS Sculpture Prize
2016 Hillview Sculpture Prize
2016 Eclectica Exhibition, Frensham .MIttagong
2016 Bowral Art Gallery Sculpture Prize
2016 Goulburn Regional Art Award .Finalist.
2015 Kangaroo Valley ” Arts in the Valley”
2015 BDAS Sculpture Prize .
2014 Indoor Sculpture Prize.BDAS
2014 Hillview Sculpture Prize
2013 . What lies beneath Goulburn Regional Gallery
2013 Arts in the Valley Kangaroo Valley
2013 Wingecarribee Art Prize .BDAS Bowral.
2012\2013 Come to your Senses Goulburn Regional Gallery
2012 Open studio with Del Cooley (part of art trail )
2011 Open studio with Del Cooley (part of art trail )
2012 Sculpture on high exhibition . Hillview
2012 Stratum exhibition at BDAS
2012 Quirky sculptures exhibition at Milk Factory., Bowral
2012 Sculpture Prize, Bowral and District Art Society (BDAS), Bowral
2012 Fettlers ‘Built environment’ painting prize, Robertson
2011 Fettlers ‘Built environment’ painting prize, Robertson
2011 Finalist, Goulburn Regional Art Award
2011 Finalist, Waverley Art Prize
2010 Alvaro Still Life Prize.
2010 Finalist, Waverley Art Prize
2010 Inaugural Outdoor Sculpture Prize, Bowral and District Art Society, Bowral
2010 Turnbull Painting Prize, Bowral and District Art Society, Bowral
2008 Art exhibition with Paul Stork, Milk Factory Gallery, Bowral
2005 Square Ink group exhibition, Milk Factory Gallery, Bowral
AWARDS and scholarships
2022 Winner sculpture prize BOCCA
2022 Commended Sculpture prize
2021 winner small sculpture section Bowral sculpture prize
2019 Commended. Bowral Art Gallery 2019 sculpture prize.
2018 Veolia Creative arts scholarship
2018 Winner Bowral Art Gallery sculpture Prize
2016 Encouragement award Goulburn Regional Art Award
2015 Highly Commended Arts in the Valley Kangaroon Valley
2015 Highly commended BDAS Sculpture Prize .
2014 Veolia Creative arts scholarship
2013 Highly Commended, indoor. Arts in the Valley Kangaroo Valley.
2013 3rd Prize Wingecarribee art prize .BDAS Bowral.
2012 Highly commended Sculpture Prize, Bowral & District Art Society (BDAS)
2012 Winner Fettlers ‘Built environment’ painting prize, Robertson
2011 Winner Fettlers ‘Built environment’ painting prize, Robertson
2010 Commended Alvaro Still Life Prize
2010 Winner Outdoor Sculpture Prize, Bowral and District Art Society, Bowral
2010 Winner Turnbull Painting Prize, Bowral and District Art Society, Bowral
1998 Exhibition and prize winner, Willesden Green Library Centre ,London
1994 Short listed for P&O sponsored prize for finals, Chelsea College of Art & Design
1993 One of four to be selected to attend the 4th Art Biennale in Maastricht, Germany. Workshops with sculptor Auke de Vries
Artistic Professional & Volunteer experience
2017 Signage & Tree painting solo project Moss Vale Primary
2013 Mural painting group project at Moss Vale Primary school
2009 -2013 Gallery Assistant at Gallery Ecosse.Exeter.
2001-2005 Created the website - squareinkgallery.com.au selling art online.
2001 -2003 Owned and operated a café business with husband, Moss Vale, Australia
1996 -2000 Freelance work in London assisting metalworker James Garner. Working as a welder creating work for individual designers and craftsmen including Tom Dixon. Working for Mike Smith Fabrications, welding sculptural work for artists such as Damien Hirst & Rachel Whiteread
1998 Art workshop in Wandsworth Prison. Involved in six week workshops with five other professional artists, resulting in an exhibition
Contact details
Lucinda McDonald \ Lewis
0419 982263
http://latmac.wixsite.com/lucindamcdonald
lucinda_mcdonald3
Artist’s statement
My work comes from a subliminal place of huge skies and vast open landscapes. Of colours, shapes and spaces born from the African subcontinent, primal and mysterious. Of a time of discovery and creation that first became apparent to me as a child juxtaposed between worlds.
I was born in London. But when I was five years old, my mother remarried a South African farmer, and the London Putney playground my sisters and I knew was substituted for the sweeping plains of the Eastern Transvaal.
Left primarily to our own devices in this landscape, we discovered a realm of experimental freedom and unbridled creativity. Here we ran on mountain tops, and in forests. We paddled in creeks and made forts from foraged sticks and stones playing for hours, days, weeks to create childhood somethings from nothings.
Newcomers in an unknown country, memories of this childhood inform my sculpture and painting today. Through the systematic, playful approach I take with colour, line and shape, and the composition and placement of objects, shapes and textures to find some harmony against a certain tension. This subconscious requirement remains as instinctive today as it did during its formative years of infancy when my world turned on its axis.
In 1985 with my schooling finished, I left South Africa and returned to England. Chelsea College of the Arts beckoned and throughout a three year degree I continued to find inspiration in pieces foraged and found. Discarded pieces of steel reclaimed and rejuvenated continued a lifelong juxtaposition of finding artistic accord through abstraction. In London, I spent fruitful time working alongside design greats Tom Dixon, James Garner and Mike Smith making pieces for artists Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread.
In 2000 I made another seismic move to the NSW Southern Highlands of Australia. Today, my painting and sculptural work continues to speak of my love of landscape, and my enduring pursuit to find my place and purpose in it.
Add an educational institution
Awards
2023
2023
2023
Add Award Name , Add City
Add Award Name , Add City
Add Award Name , Add City
Exhibitions
Solo
2023
Add an Exhibition Name ,Venue Name
2023
Add an Exhibition Name ,Venue Name
Group
2023
Add an Exhibition Name ,Venue Name
2023
Add an Exhibition Name ,Venue Name
2023
Add an Exhibition Name ,Venue Name
2023
Add an Exhibition Name ,Venue Name