Shona Macdonald
Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Shona Macdonald received a Masters in Fine Art at the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1996, and a Bachelors of Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland in 1992. An Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director of Studio Arts at the University of Massachusetts, Macdonald has been a Visiting Artist at over forty institutions, including Wimbledon College of Art, London, (1998), Georgia State University, Atlanta, (2007), Cornell University (2006), the University of Alberta, and the University of Calgary, Canada, (2002). A grant recipient from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, NY, (2009), along with fellowships at the Roswell Artist-in-Residence in Roswell, New Mexico, (2010-11), Can Serrat, Barcelona, Spain, (2012), and the Cromarty Arts Trust in Scotland, her work has been featured in Art in America, Art News, the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, Sacramento Bee and New American Paintings. Select solo exhibitions include Ebersmoore, Chicago, (2012), the Roswell Art Museum, Roswell, NM, (2011), Engine Room, Wellington, New Zealand, (2010), Proof Gallery, Boston, MA (2009), CYNTHIA-REEVES, New York, NY (2008), Den Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA, (2007), Skestos-Gabriele, Chicago IL, (2005), Galerie Refugium, Berlin, Germany, (2002), and Fassbender Gallery, Chicago (1998 and 2000). The artist lives and works in Western Massachusetts.
“Shona Macdonald’s paintings and drawings offer an evocative reading of landscape riddled with manifold implications. Her works present imagery characterized by both its precisely rendered detail and confounding spatial ambiguity. Macdonald’s imaginative topographies incorporate an intriguing array of pictorial tactics, as she zeroes in on her surroundings, observing and reworking them deftly. Drawing upon the history of abstracted landscape, a complex range of sources become refined into renderings that lay claim to a highly layered and nuanced, sometimes haunting graphic imagery.” – Martin Patrick, “Around: Shona Macdonald”, Roswell Art Museum, 2011