Gary McDonald
b. 1978 England; lives and works London
 
 

 
 

 
 
Regalia III, 2006 Oil on board 82 cm x 82 cm

Gary McDonald’s work generates a dialogue on formal traditions within the painterly canon. Vibrantly colourful or inky and dark, either way, his paintings are underlined by a melancholic and sometimes disquieting atmosphere. On one level, McDonald quotes the work of past masters, his oil paintings’ compositions reminiscent of the intimacy of still life or poetic landscapes and his work always feels familiar in this reference to such a lasting form and style. However, he blurs the boundaries between still life and landscape, representation and abstraction and, as such, his work sits uncomfortably amongst any historical narrative. His pieces are aware of a traditional language but McDonald subtly flouts its conventions, eluding a formal reading and questioning the relationship between form and pure representation.

Gary McDonald graduated from the Royal Academy Schools in 2004 and was selected by ArtReview 25 as one of London’s top new graduates. In the same year he was amongst only four UK artists to be shortlisted for the €30,000 Lexmark Art Prize and exhibited in Bloomberg’s New Contemporaries. His first solo show with Wyer Gallery was in September 2006.

 
 
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EDUCATION: 2001-4 The Royal Academy, London; Post-Graduate Diploma, Fine Art; 1998-2001 Chelsea College of Art & Design SELECTED EXHIBITIONS: 2006 Gary McDonald, Wyer Gallery, London; Gastrophoria, Group show, The Pumphouse Gallery, Battersea, London; The Gone Tomorrow Gallery - Solo show 2005 Gone Tomorrow Gallery Launch; paintings featured in group show; Acid drops and Sugar Candy, Group show, Transition Gallery and Fosterart, London; Think and Wonder, from April: Group show at Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood; collaboration with Simon Logan. Curated by Elinor Janz and Katherine Tulluh; 2004 Group show, The Pump House Gallery, Hornsey; Lexmark European Painting Prize, London and Milan (one of four UK finalists); New Contemporaries, Liverpool Biennial and The Barbican, London; The Schools Show, The Royal Academy, London; Royal Academy Café Gallery, Two person show; 2003 Premiums, The Royal Academy of Art, London; Work Ethic, Group show; The Gone Tomorrow Gallery@ Euroart Gallery,

  
London; The Last Summer I Spent on Earth. Group Show, The Project Rooms, Glasgow 2002 14 x 14, Group show, Century Gallery, London; Story Teller, Group show; Kinnijoespace, Hamburg 2001 Future Map 01, London Institute graduate show, Chelsea College Millbank, London; Rhapsodic Visions, Group show featuring four artists, The Mafuji Gallery, London; Arthur Anderson purchase prize exhibition, London; 2000 Arthur Anderson purchase prize exhibition, London COLLECTIONS: The Saatchi Collection; Ernst & Young; CB Richard Ellis; The Cyril Taylor Collection and numerous other private collections. PRESS: Art Review, Top 25 Graduates 2004, selected by Catriona Warren; Independent on Sunday, 04.07.04, Arts, Books, Culture; Cream of Graduates, Charlotte Edwards; Time Out, 24.11.04, Review of New Contemporaries, Martin Coomer; Art Monthly, 11.04 Review of New Contemporaries, Martin Herbert