TERRA MCDONALD - Artist Statement

The Land Series is simply about observing and interpreting the land around me. However the works from this series have less to do with the landscape and more to do with a dominant figure in the landscape, the horse. The subject of horse has come to these works through my own interactive studies in the field, memory, and to some extent from the culture that surrounds me.

Mark making has lead The Land Series through tactile expressions of the horses I have worked with. The layers of paint and charcoal build the form and textures that are dominate the aesthetics of these works. In that additive and reductive process it is most rewarding to feel that the image need not be entirely depicted. The shapes themselves are in many cases left open and the dramatic shifts in value and light allow for the illusion of form to become complete and real. The balance between: open and closed shapes, dark and light are all quite intuitive as well as the balance between positive and negative space. The direct and immediate nature of this drawing/ painting sensibility compliments the subject. Mass, movement, physicality and texture are all elements of the beauty I see in the land, the horse. What I find interesting about this beauty is that it is neither vain nor modest but rather, something closer to a simple grace.

Terra McDonald was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1976. She has resided in Calgary for more than twenty- five years. In Calgary she received both her Master of Fine Arts from The University of Calgary and her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Alberta College of Art & Design. McDonald’s most recent exhibition was “Land Series: Here” a solo-exhibition of twelve large scale drawings of the Stampede Horse Drive at Devo Gallery in Calgary, this show was produced with the support of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Terra McDonald’s work has been collected privately in Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto and Singapore.

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