St. Catharines painter Melanie MacDonald will exhibit her series Pond Life in the Dennis Tourbin Members’ Gallery at the Niagara Artists Centre Oct. 10-18.
ST. CATHARINES - Many of Melanie MacDonald’s paintings reveal a breadth of subjects. She’s exhibited paintings of board games, fish and old scrapbook images (a nod to her interest in vintage things).
While some of her themes are seemingly random, others reveal corners of the St. Catharines artist’s life.
The latter applies to Pond Life, MacDonald’s new exhibit at the Niagara Artists Centre’s Dennis Tourbin Members’ Gallery. The show opens on Wednesday and runs for two weeks.
The series includes eight pieces documenting life in and around a pond in the Upper Ottawa Valley. MacDonald and her significant other decided to document the pond around 2002 when it was first being constructed.
“This series is an outgrowth of Steve and I spending time watching this pond change shape. In 2002 we helped his dad build a log cabin on his bush lot and his dad got this large pond dug out,” she said. “We stocked it with rainbow trout and planted trees around it and shrubs. We’d be watching what was this man-made looking thing change shape.”
Although MacDonald is quick to say she doesn’t plan to be a wildlife painter, capturing images of nature is a perfect fit. She admits to enjoying “puddling around the pond,” hiking and fishing.
MacDonald takes photographs of her subjects then, when she returns to her downtown St. Catharines studio, records what she sees.
In Pond Life, MacDonald became enthralled with the details her camera captured.
“The reflective surfaces and compositions and this sort of camouflage of some of these creatures,” she said. “I enjoyed finding the patterns in the landscape and zooming in on those.”
One as-of-yet untitled piece features a hole in the ice, with a colander and two small fish laying beside it.
The odd placement of a colander and the almost universe-like light pattern reflected in the hole intrigued her.
MacDonald spends most days, nine to five painting in her studio. And she admits, her muse prefers morning and sunlight. Listening to audio books while she works also helps her focus, she said.
After the Pond Life exhibit, MacDonald will continue working on a large scale exhibit she has scheduled at the St. Thomas Art Gallery in 2014. For that, she’ll create a large piece based on her scrapbooking art.
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Melanie MacDonald is an active member of the Niagara Artists’ Centre, the region’s only artist-run centre. She has participated in group and solo exhibitions in the Niagara, Toronto, Hamilton, Kingston, and Quebec. In 2008, her work was selected for Carte Blanche 2: Painting a book published by Magenta Publishing for the Arts that features the work of 180 Canadian painters. In 2009, she received a Trillium Excellence in the Arts Award (in the emerging artist category) sponsored by the St. Catharines Culture Committee. She has also received OAC exhibition assistance from the Ontario Arts Council in 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2010. (source: melaniemacdonald.ca)
What
Pond Life by artist Melanie MacDonald
When
Oct. 10-18. Closing reception: Oct. 18, 7-9 p.m.
Where
Dennis Tourbin Members’ Gallery at the Niagara Artists Centre, 354 St. Paul St., St. Catharines
Admission
Free
Interview with Things of Desire 2009
Interview - DO NOT PASS GO 12 December 2009 Mike Landry from Things of Desire - Canada's Alternative Art Weekly interviewed me about this show and my work in general. From the title "Do Not Pass Go," I guess we can expect to see more of your board game paintings, what else will make up the show?
The show is a dozen paintings of Monopoly boards. They’re partly inspired by an episode in the final season of the Sopranos where a fight breaks out between Bobby and Tony during a Monopoly game. Tony ends up with Monopoly houses and hotels stuck to his face. I didn’t see this episode until after I’d started the Monopoly paintings over a year ago, but in this latest series the board’s all messed up. They’re chaotic scenes of the board in disarray, when the rules no longer apply.
You've been working with Monopoly for a while now. What keeps you interested in that in particular?
As a kid I was never particularly interested in games, including Monopoly. When my friend Larry, a Monopoly fanatic, asked me to make a painting of the game I had to borrow a set, but I was immediately blown away by the colours, the design of the board and the graphics, the pewter playing pieces, the wear on the cards and money. I liked the challenge of trying to combine all those elements. Right around the time I started the series, the recession was beginning in the US, led by the mortgage crisis. The paintings started to connect to other things that were happening. I also became a first time home owner and landlord last year so that probably factors into my ongoing interest as well. What I’m discovering is that the game can be used to suggest narratives and criticisms.
Dishing Out A Message
Artist finds beauty in her kitchen
By CHRISTOPHER WATERS Standard Staff
Melanie MacDonald, a St. Catharines painter whose Dirty Dishes exhibition is featured at a Niagara-on-the-Lake gallery, isn't sure what to think of the squat new dishwasher sitting in the far corner of her kitchen.
The gleaming white cube that offers cleanliness, convenience and a pleasant swishing sound when it operates arrived this summer.
