Rita Macdonald

"Displaced Argyle", 2003 plaster and latex paint on wall 24" x 312"	"Come Undone", 2004 plaster and colored pencil on wall, 40" x 142"	"Seam", 2004 pencil on board, 4" x 5"	"Blue Pleat", 2003 pen and pencil on paper, 3 1/2" x 3 3/4"

click on the thumbnails above for a larger image

Artist Statement

The work that I am currently making uses domestic patterns taken from my own personal history as its starting point - isolating the pattern or concentrating on just a small slice of it, then displacing it into a new context, be it a wall relief, a painting or a pencil drawing. I am primarily interested in pattern for its relationship to the experience of both place and memory.

My wall relief drawings begin with patterns taken from wallpapers, curtains and other remembered household architectural decorations. I then work toward merging the architecture of the new site with my memory of the experience of the original pattern. After drawing and cutting a stencil, I apply the drawing directly to the wall in plaster so that my memory becomes a direct part of the viewer's experience of the new space.

My small pencil drawings are made by a repetitive exercise of observation and mark-making and are drawn at actual size without color or exaggeration. Whether they are recordings of the catholic school uniforms of my childhood or the grided fabric of an old and often worn bathrobe, the drawings are deliberate concentrations on small moments - a fold, a seam, a waistband - and the implied relationship of those moments to the body underneath.

Rita Macdonald

Education

Selected Exhibitions

2005	Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY, Drawing Card. Naked Duck Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Ladylike. Baltimore Office of the Arts, Baltimore, MD, Picture Window.
2004	d.u.m.b.o. arts center, Brooklyn, NY, There is a Light that Never Goes Out. Dieu Donné, New York, NY, Good Fortune. asterisk, Brooklyn, NY, Manifesto?. A.I.R. Gallery, New York, NY, generations 04.
2003	HOME, Queens, NY, Contemporary Perspectives. d.u.m.b.o. Art Under the Bridge Festival, Brooklyn, NY, Stairwell. Dieu Donné, New York, NY, Take Out. Hampden Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, New York/New England/New Talent.
2001	Visual Arts Gallery, New York, NY, Synthetic Dystopia. Visual Arts Gallery, New York, NY, MFA Special Projects.
2000	Eastside Gallery, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, On the Surface.
1999	Printed Matter, New York, NY, The Next World; A Selection of Books from Independent Presses.
1996	Printed Matter, New York, NY, WSW 20th Anniversary. Academy Art Center Gallery, University of Honolulu, Honolulu, HI, Turning the Page.
1995	Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY, Rita MacDonald.
1991	Woods Gerry Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. Benson Hall Gallery, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI.
1990	Harbor Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA.

Bibliography
Exhibition Catalogs & Periodicals
Chow, Elaine. “Virtually Real.” Visual Arts Journal, New York, NY, Spring 2004,
cover and pp. 13-15.
Kropper, Jean G., Handmade Books, Davis Publications, Worcester, MA, 1997.
Parnass, Larry. “New Talent at Hampden Gallery.” The Daily Hampshire Gazette,
February 10, 2003.
Design Annual 1998. Print Magazine, September 1998, p.306.
Design Annual 2004. Print Magazine, November/December 2004, pp. 299, 303.
Turning the Page, Academy Art Center Gallery, University of Honolulu, Honolulu, HI, 1996.
Wells, Bonnie. “Layer Cakes, Catalog Shreds and Emerging Artists.” Amherst Bulletin,
January 31, 2003: p. 2.
Artist Books
Family, Edition of 100, Published by Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, NY,1994.

Public Collections
Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, GA
DePaul University, Chicago, IL
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Newark Public Library, Newark, NJ
Newberry Library, Chicago, IL
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, CT
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Yale University Library, New Haven, CT

Contact Information
Rita Macdonald
macdonald_rita@hotmail.com