Carolynda Macdonald’s art is pure instinct, joy and precision. Her paintings are restorative, raising our spirits and creating threshold spaces where the human condition; vulnerability, love, hidden desires, betrayal, parenthood and protectiveness can be explored. In Macdonald’s work, birds are a conduit for acknowledging and expressing human emotions, led by the subconscious. They become guardians, sites of healing and sources of reverie. There is a profound sense of stillness and reflexivity in the mountainous, grotto-like environments her avian protagonists inhabit.
Carolynda Macdonald bridges ‘a recognisable world’ with ‘an imaginary or mythological one’, moving freely between them and collapsing boundaries in the process. Humanity is imprinted onto nature, in fragments of Old Master paintings given new life and 21st Century context. Epic history painting becomes intimately focused, and the bodies of tiny wrens assume a scale of reverence and empathy previously unseen. As the gaze of one species meets another, and figures break free from expectation, Macdonald’s paintings expand in the imagination, creating spaces of inner reflection and solace.
Carolynda Macdonald worked as a Biomedical Scientist in Microbiology from 1982-97. Since 1982, Macdonald has developed her painting practice, studying Life Drawing and printmaking in Chichester, London, Falmouth & Dundee. Carolynda Macdonald has exhibited widely in the UK, USA and Australia, and is represented in private and public collections worldwide, including the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and UCLH Arts.