Monica Macdonald

  • Artist Name
  • Artist Bio
  • Artist Photo
  • Monica Macdonald, Prince Edward Island.

  • “My art is a celebration of the world around me --- the landscape, the weather, the everyday fabric of life. Lively brushwork, multiple layers and vibrant joyful colors are common elements in my paintings. I love to work with acrylic and collage because of the absolute freedom it gives me to create, re-create, select, emphasize, eliminate and re-imagine.I start my paintings with loose, gestural mark-making and then move on, responding intuitively to what appears on the canvas. I continue to dialogue with the painting and eventually, on the best of days, the painting takes over and finds its own story. Recently I have returned to landscape for my inspiration and I find my work moving further toward abstraction as I attempt to capture the energy, spirit and essence of my subject matter.”

    Art critic and curator Ray Cronin wrote of Macdonald’s work: “The landscape of home is immensely powerful of course, made up as it is of equal parts memory, imagination and experience.... The world depicted in these paintings is stable, secure and very beautiful. It is tempting to think of them as a kind of sympathetic magic, an attempt to make real the heart’s desire..... It’s not nostalgia, however, that makes these works so interesting. This, rather, is reverie, the sort of daydream infused by desire and memory that somehow seems truer than mere reality.”

    Monica Macdonald is a professional artist living and working on Prince Edward Island. Monica studied at Sir Wilfred Grenfell School of Fine Art in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Art in 1996. She has been the recipient of several Arts awards and grants including PEI Council of the Arts Professional Development Grant, the New Brunswick Arts Board Emerging Artist Creation Grant, and the John Lewis Paton Scholarship from Memorial University. Recent Professional Development workshops in Florida and North Carolina have invigorated her work and led her in new directions.

    Monica’s paintings have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her work can be found hanging in private and corporate collections nationally and internationally, including CIBC Wood Gundy, McCain Foods International Ltd, Greater Halifax Partnership, Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital, McInnes Cooper Law, University of New Brunswick Permanent Collection, Prince Edward Island Art Bank Permanent Collection, and The Canadiana Fund National Capital Commission in Ottawa.

  • monica-macdonald-artist-photo
  • Page 1 of 2