Joy McDonald

                                          Miss Fitz                                           Queer Fish If I haven't left my application too late, these yummy little paintings will be hanging in the International Lesbian Day event   @ Riverside Receptions, 50 Oxlade Drive, New Farm, Qld Sunday 5 th  October 2014. 

From my window at The Shed, across acres of tarmac and chain wire fences I can see the river as a narrow strip of fugitive colour, ranging from caramel to slate grey to silver - always moving and always fascinating.  I can't separate the water from what happens along its banks and I can't separate the river from its history.  I love the river and feel privileged to enjoy its benefits but I mourn the loss of the mudflats and wetlands that have been reclaimed and the life they supported.  We have a 'culture of forgetting' but thanks to historian Raymond Evans, I remember that Brisbane was a dreadful place for recidivist convicts sent here from other settlements and more recently has a terrible history of corruption and exploitation.  In the 30s, the luxury flying boat service was located on the Hamilton stretch of the river, and during WWII men worked in the heat to load supplies for American and Australian troops in the Islands.  Tarmac weeds ...

I had a great time at Containerval, Hamilton this month.  My work was on show in the Juggler's Artspace with photographer Margaret Bending, and the glass artists Jo Bone and Aaron Micallef.  In conjunction with Containerval we held a couple of 'open studio sale' days at The Shed which has prompted me to photograph my work before it is sold.  These are some of the unframed small and large drawings and some small paintings from the love poem series. Untitled Corinthian But you are my paradise tonight Come to the orchard in spring Frankincense  The winds of heaven mix forever with a sweet emotion Anise shoots fill the air with aroma Pomegranate flowers and sweethearts The dog beach studies Savannah weasel cars green table vessels Nike Scape River houses life study wrapped Chinatown Poe Auto junk Auto junk Auto junk Auto junk Auto junk 

This work was inspired by American painter Richard Diebenkorn, one of my current favourites.  I love his interiors and his urban scapes in particular. His compositions are always interesting. Blue woman with three cups of coffee 76cmx102cm synthetic polymer I'm now working at The Shed - a Juggler's art space and I am ever mindful of the river.  Because of the cyclonic weather we were having, the river has been more like a wild animal than a serene waterway.  These paintings are my response to the river.   Inundation 102cmx76cm   A series of meanders across a broad plain 102cmx76cm  (selected for the Milburn Art Prize 2013)   River Reach 102cmx76cm Synthetic polymer. Red River 40cmx40cm mixed media

Recent painting and drawing Migration , acrylic, oil stick, on linen, 100cmx76cm Ce Soir , acrylic, oil stick, on canvas, 91cmx61cm 3 drawings from small sculpture workshop Dec 5 2012. Mixed media, 32cm x 22cm

Handmade paper, found material, wire, each 32cm x 22cm Some of my recent work. I experimented with paper making and investigated some of the almost limitless possibilities of mark-making using different media including wax, oilstick, ingrained textures, found material and crocheted and knitted silver wire.  The granny rug was inspired by Lorraine Connolly-Northey's Opossum Cape which I saw at the Tweed Valley Regional Gallery.   Granny rug drawing, handmade paper, crocheted and knitted wire, wax, net. foldback , mixed media, acrylic paint, Arche paper, rice paper, wax, oil stick. Stain , mixed media, acrylic paint, Arche paper, rice paper.  Darling Downs, Black Women's Tears. mixed media, acrylic paint on canvas. Machines are abstractions of the human spirit, mixed media, acrylic paint on canvas, 1.18cmx96cm

Together with Cherie Durant, Russell Fuller, Jennii Gould, Sue Hill, Rose Moxham, Jenny Schuhart and Todd Whisson I am having an exhibition at Graydon Gallery New Farm. Pastiche: it’s all about the rhythm How do you put together the works of eight artists with no common theme, no unifying subject matter, and no common style? For a start, you give the show a name that reflects the heady mix of conjunctions, incongruities, the literal and the surreal. You call it Pastiche. “It’s a bit post post-modern,” says painter Joy McDonald, one of the exhibiting artists. “Truly a pastiche – we use different materials, we’re figurative, minimalist, abstract, there are story book illustrations, ceramics and sculptures.”   “We’re a disparate bunch and we’re all mates,” says Todd Whisson, whose recent exhibition at Red Hill Gallery was a sell-out.  “We talk to each other and bounce ideas around. Now we’ve come together in this exhibition and it’s our paintings that talk to each othe...