Shona Macdonald
The paintings in Sky on Ground record my observations of images
reflected in water. Cropped by the edge of puddles, parts of
the landscape are displaced as fragmented, truncated images
(mainly buildings and trees) that reflect back at us. Through both
illusionism and inversion, disorientation occurs. The bits of sky,
trees, clouds, and buildings edging into the puddles remain out
of view, yet through reflection their physical absence suggests an
uncanny presence. This is a metaphor useful to my thinking about
how our human experiences are shaped by and through place.
Because painting inherently fuses imagery together on a flat
surface, it is the perfect vehicle with which to explore these ideas.
The sky is on the ground in these works as much as the ground is
on the sky. I employ diptych, triptych, and multipanel formats to
suggest transformation and time, and I work in layers of viscosity
to make the material itself resemble the thing I am depicting.