Fiona McDonald

Statement

Mc Donald’s work explores the points of intersection between science and art. Her practice comprises of installation, print and digital media works, which utilise audio-visual and sensor technology–which incorporate generative sonic and visual content.

Her works can be seen as experimental or propositional spaces, whose boundaries are defined by the tensions between seeming opposites–positive/negative; order/chaos; visible/invisible. She constructs spaces or situations in which the laws and concepts of physics, chemical process and art are brought into play and combined to bring about evolving environments, which exist in constant states of flux and suspension.

She is interested in how a simple set of rules can generate ultimately complex self-generating and perpetuating systems and feedback loops. The accumulations and erosions of forms that are recorded on the electrolytic plates, pulsating magnetic fields of ferromagnetic dust or adulations of liquid in her works are suggestive of miniature landscapes, environments and ecosystems.

Her artworks comprise of bespoke experimental apparatus–which generate both physical and metaphorical outcomes. She is aiming to prompt viewers to meditate on the dynamics between art and science; man-made and ‘natural’ systems; the technological and the ‘alive’; experiment and knowledge; form and content.

Biography

Fiona Mc Donald is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Dublin. Selected exhibitions include, group exhibits at the Lab Gallery, Green on Red Gallery, Hugh Lane Gallery, Temple Bar Gallery and the Digital Hub Dublin. In 2008 she was selected for the Claremorris Open 2008, curated by Lizzie Carey Thomas, Curator at Tate Britain, London, UK. Her work has also been exhibited internationally at the Cologne Art Fair, Danske Grafikeres Hus, Copenhagen, Print 2001 Paris and with the New York Society of Etchers, New York City USA. Irish Contemporary Print Exhibition, Kelowna, Canada and Printmaking Council of New Jersey, New Jersey, USA.

Mc Donald received a Bsc in Biological Chemistry from Coleraine University of Ulster before attending the National College of Art and Design where she received a BA in Fine Art in 1996. In 2001 she received an MA in Fine Art from the National College of Art and Design and an MSc in Multimedia Systems at Trinity College in 2006. Arts Council awards include New Work Award 2007. Received for a collaborative project with Nicholas Ward for project [e++].

She has also been awarded a project studio at Temple Bar Gallery & Studio from May 2009 to Sept 2010 . Between 2006 & 2009 she has given a series of non-toxic printmaking workshops at IADT Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art Design and Technology on the Visual Arts Practice course and worked as a part-time lecturer.