Art2Muse

Sarah McDonald was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1974. After completing a degree in Art and Design Education, she worked as an artist and art teacher in Australia and the United Kingdom. It was while travelling that Sarah first saw the beauty and stories of history in old, derelict buildings.

Inspired by these images, Sarah uses oils to create her work, layer by layer, reproducing colours, patterns and textures while balancing lines, shapes and composition.

Each painting offers an opportunity to traverse landscapes, continents and seasons, and in each painting, there is a quality that evokes emotional responses from every viewer as they re-tell their own story, stirred by memories and images of their own past.

Sarah exhibits widely throughout Australia and her work can be found in commercial and private spaces where the rawness in her paintings forms a dynamic contrast against the apparent simplicity of modern society.

“Wabi-Sabi”

- A recent collection of paintings by Sarah McDonald

“Wabi-Sabi” is a Japanese nature-based idea about finding beauty in things unconventional, imperfect and incomplete. Beauty in things modest and humble, lacking in perfection and often corroded. Wabi-Sabi” teaches that beauty can come from ugliness.

I relate very closely to this idea and it is what has inspired my recent collection of paintings. The abstract compositions are derived from man made surfaces that have been exposed to the elements as well as other man-made marks, such as graffiti. I was drawn to the organic shapes and the layers of rich colour coming through the painted and rusted surfaces. To me, they were richer because of their degradation and the effects of corrosion.

The process of making these paintings is a very rich and layered one where I can get lost in a trance like state. The paint is thick and layered and builds up gradually over time exposing hidden treasures that lie beneath the top layer. I aim to allow the viewer to make their own associations and interpretations and hopefully the paintings speak to them in some way.
- Sarah McDonald

Press Release

“Like buildings eroded by the weather of passing years, Sarah McDonald's paintings describe a history of time and the transformations of derelict constructions. In thick layers of oil paint, built up and scratched away by brushes and palette knives, McDonald creates richly textured works inspired by urban environments - the decaying architecture and dilapidated corners and crevices of our industrial landscapes. Layers of deep but evanescent colours mingle with gossamer streaks and veils of white, alluding to the organic corrosion process of tattered posters, crumbling walls, peeling paint and rusting metals. McDonald's abstract works celebrate the often-unnoticed beauty in materiality and decay, resembling at once perishing industrial edifices and ascending landscapes - landscapes that seem to rise buoyantly from their own carapaces and evaporate into sky. Born in Adelaide, South Australia, McDonald worked as an artist and art teacher in Australia and the United Kingdom after completing her B.A. in Art and Design Education. She currently paints and teaches art at St. Peters College in Adelaide.”
– from Artis-Spectrum Magazine, New York, May 2005

Exhibition History

Solo Exhibitions

2008: Gallery 139, Adelaide
2006: Browns Gallery, Adelaide
2005: Maree Mizon Gallery, Sydney
2005: Browns Gallery, Adelaide
2003: Browns Gallery, Adelaide
2003: Intrude Gallery, Melbourne
2002: Greenhill Galleries Adelaide
2001: Browns Gallery, Adelaide
1999: Browns Gallery, Adelaide
1998: Liberator Gallery, Adelaide
1997: Browns Gallery, Adelaide

Group Exhibitions

2008: Gallery 139, Adelaide
2005: Agora Gallery, New York USA
2005: Maree Mizon Gallery, Sydney
2004: Hill-Smith Fine Art Gallery
2003: Smart Art, Adelaide
2003: ARTS SA, Hindley st, Adelaide
2003: Prospect Gallery, Adelaide
2002: Arterial Gallery, Adelaide
2002-2003: Art Images Gallery, Adelaide
2000: Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide
2001: Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide

Commissions

2005: AIR APARTMENTS. The Pickard Group/Tectvs Design
2005: DHL: Macquarie Goodman Pty Ltd
2006: Australian Paralympic Committee
2006: Lin Fox: Macquarie Goodman Pty Ltd
2006: Hino: Macquarie Goodman Pty Ltd