John MacDonald

John MacDonald is dedicated to his ever-changing practice. He sees his work as a constant state of flux,developing on the canvas from a myriad of different influences. These inspirational forces are buried in his deeply layered works in a practice that extends from painting into sculpture at his latest show at the San Juan Islands Art Museum.

Growing up in Prince George, B.C, MacDonald was one of few children interested in art. The art museum in his hometown town was merely a house when he lived there, which led him to seek the natural world as a major influence for his work. As a result, MacDonald was constantly creating and especially loved making things from salvaged materials. At 11 years old he built himself a studio to work in attached to his father’s shed and has continued to work ever since. “Anything can inspire me to do or create something”, the artist states.

MacDonald studied at Emily Carr University in British Columbia and has since had over 100 exhibitions of his work. After university, many of MacDonald’s early commissions were public-facing murals. His practice has evolved frequently over the years as he searches for new ways to express his vision. Currently, MacDonald is exploring idea-based, specimen painting. Many of his works explore how animals engage with their surroundings in an uncertain state between life and death. MacDonald seeks to convey the energy of his subjects in conversation with the work’s materiality. While being somewhat figurative, MacDonald’s paintings are concerned with the artist’s movement across the canvas, the colours and compositions chosen. It is in this sense that his works occupy their precarious position between being alive and being dead, as depictions of living things frozen on canvas and constructed in paint.

MacDonald’s work cannot be characterised by a single style. Rather, it is the artist’s desire for constant innovation that creates bodies of work that are informed by those before and inspire those coming after. His paintings are in numerous collections including the Department of External Affairs, Ottawa; Toronto Dominion Bank, Vancouver and Toronto; Shaw Cable, Calgary; The Bentall Centre, Vancouver; The Grand Pacific Hotel, Victoria; Price Waterhouse, BC; and The Hyatt Regency, Calgary.