Andrew McDonald’s art practice explores speculative identities. It is centred on painting and performances and it also includes costume, video and ceramics.
In Andrew’s recent paintings they have been working on the floor on unstretched canvas in a process that makes their painting a physical and performative action. Their relation to the work is direct and bodily, moving around and over the work. They spill colour onto the canvas, smearing it, drawing in the wet paint, later revisiting the results by folding and disrupting areas of the work. The paintings are a record of this inquiry.
The strong fluid presence of human identity in these totemlike paintings, is a defiant celebration of the human desire to be seen and understood.
In their performances they make and paint dresses, masks and wigs that enable an embodiment of fluidity around identity and the self. They want viewers to be struck by the gap between the things they see and what they can infer as causes and origins.
Curriculum Vitae
Email: andjmcd@gmail.com Website: andrewmcdonaldart.co.uk
Instagram: @andjmcdonald
Biography
Originally from New Zealand, I have been studying and working in London since 1986. In 1998 I completed my MA at the Royal College of Art. While studying I also performed as a live artist in the UK and internationally with an experimental music group and then with a seven-piece performance/music group.
Education
2012-13 The Institute of Education (London). PGCE in Art and Design
1996-8: Royal College of Art. MA in Millinery Design
1994-5: London College of Fashion. BTEC HND
1969-86: School (Bream Bay College), Auckland University, New Zealand
2013-14: City and Islington College, Visiting lecturer in performance art
Exhibitions and Performances
2023:’Beyond Confinement’ [group exhibition] at Koppel Project Station, London
2023:’Speculative Presences’ [solo exhibition] at Everyday Sunshine Gallery London
2019: ‘Declarations: Painting and Sculpture by Andrew McDonald’ (solo exhibition). The Vivian Gallery, Matakana, Auckland, New Zealand
2017: ‘The Northerner’ (group exhibition curated by Gregory O’Brien). The Vivian Gallery (Now Scott Lawrie Gallery), Matakana, Auckland, New Zealand
2017: ‘The Medium and The Message’ (group exhibition). Arthouse1 Gallery, London.
2017: ‘Queer Artists Now’ (The Mill Co. Project group exhibition). Rose Lipman Building, London
2015: National Open Art Prize, Royal College of Art (selected for exhibition)
2012: Discerning Eye Exhibition, The Mall Galleries, London
2012: Threadneedle Prize Exhibition, The Mall Galleries, London
2010: ‘No Soul For Sale’, Tate Modern
Publications
2019: Londoners at Home: The Way We Live Now (Milan Svanderlik Press)
2018: A Queer Anthology of Rage, ed. Richard Porter (Pilot Press).
2017: Over There: A Queer Anthology of Joy, ed. Richard Porter (Pilot Press)