artbrooklyn.com Daniel McDonald Brooklyn fine art painting printmaking silk screens etchings woodcuts clay ceramics ceramic tiles manager color color theory interior design renovation decoration art director design production faculty parsons the new schoo

D A N I E L  M c D O N A L D

tbrooklyn.danielmcdonald@gmail.com

www.artbrooklyn.com


Artist’s Statement:
 

I use grids as a way to balance order and chaos. Although I wasn’t aware of it as I worked on it, the painting suggests longitude and latitude overlays in a faintly drawn grid. The blue background conjures oceans while abstract forms imply islands and continents. And, as always, the focus is on color combined with form.

— ABOVE: "Untitled" Opening Image on my website is featured at a show titled, "Crossing Boundaries Art // Maps," at the Norman B. Levanthal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library. McDonald’s work paired up with the innovative thematic map in the mid-19th-century American whaling industry, which was dominated by ports in southern New England. BELOW: “Whale Chart” by cartographer, Matthew Fontaine Maury, the Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Depot of Charts and Instruments (later the U.S. Naval Observatory). Maury was recognized as the father of the science of oceanography.

 

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The complexity of the art world is curious, it has spawned many different artists in so many directions in the last century. Looking back, I discovered that the direction I related to is “. . .free art from the burden of object.” — Kasimir Malevich. I appreciate the pure and simple aesthetic and I have always related to a spontaneous approach in painting and printmaking.

In time, I realize with my commitment to non-objective art, I still have an interest in figurative and representational works. I do not strive to replicate but I am inspired by borrowed imagery from many sources.

I have been doing silk screens and using the technique that I use in painting and applying that in the printing process. My work is accomplished by randomly repeating patterns on a grid. I have found that silk screen lends itself to experimentation. A painting can eventually get around to the printmaking process, or the print may inspire the painting. My application in silk screen can be quite painterly, doing multiple layers and several impressions.