Julian Campbell explores Siobhan McDonald’s imagined worlds as her installation ~Crystalline’ travels to the Highlanes Gallery in October
This has been an intensely busy and productive year for artist Siobhan McDonald. Her installation ‘Crystalline’, shown at the Centre Culture! Irlandais in Paris, will open at the Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda in October, while her exhibition of new paintings ‘Somewhere in the Future’ shown at the Catherine Hammond Gallery this summer, introduced her work to a new audience in Skibbereen. However, this is not unusual for McDonald, who is an artist of immense energy, enterprise and curiosity, and the past few years have been a whirlwind of work and activity for her. They have included her own studio practice; scientific research; and travel. Her work is experimental, diversifying across painting, charcoal drawing, photography, mixed media, sculpture and installation, and often incorporating materials form the natural world such as rock, fragments of plants, calfskin or crushed bone.
To the Irish in America, the irony of using funds from a Fenian club to buy a set of Malton views depicting Georgian Dublin was not apparent, writes Christian Dupont
Linda Brunker’s female avatars affirm nature and spirit. Mark Ewart talks to the Irish sculptor as she departs California for France
The magic realism of Sweeney’s transformation from man to bird continues Gabhann Dunne’s association with the natural world, writes Susan Campbell