Meet Abstract painter Susan McDonald
Abstract painter Susan McDonald has led a fascinating life – living in California, Japan and London with a myriad of stops in between, and attained an equally diverse career to match. Now focused on her artistic practice, the experiences she’s acquired live as a lasting influence on her artwork, including learning the art of calligraphy in Japan.
Q: Hi Susan, it’s lovely to talk. Tell us about your journey to becoming an artist
A: I’ve had a rich and meaty life, working in the US, Tokyo, Hong Kong and London; developments continue to surprise and delight me. I’ve been an oilfield welder, research scientist, film critic, Asian stockbroker and London venture capitalist, all of which now feed my art practice.
As Etel Adnan commented, lived experience provides a deep and fertile underpinning for making art.
Q: How did the opportunity to become a film critic in Japan present itself to you?
A: Looking for adventure and a new career, I left California and arrived in Tokyo with no job, a vocabulary of 20 words, only three month’s rent and a huge amount of optimism. I loved being there but it felt like living on the moon. Shocked and exploring all job options, I reluctantly asked the US Embassy for employment ideas. After a wry smile, my contact suggested I attend a weekly Foreign Executive Women presentation, to meet Americans working in Tokyo. FEW was an accurate acronym; there were few of us. Luckily I sat next to a film critic who no longer wanted the job. I submitted an acceptable film review and began my career happily covering the Tokyo Film Festival. I also started painting.
Q: Did your time studying calligraphy influence your art practice?
A: Studying and practicing calligraphy freed my mind to let my body create. Calligraphy was my entry into abstract painting. Using large brushes with Sumi ink on paper led me to using dilute paint on canvas in a similar and rewarding way. Gestural painting is an important part of my art practice today. Painting then feels like a dance where my moves are guided by a benevolent unseen force.
Q: What other inspirations inform your work?
A: The flow of inspiration is continuous, I simply need to be in a receptive state. Walking in nature and spending quiet time stimulates new thoughts and ideas. The sense of ‘mono no aware’, loosely meaning the exquisite pain of transient beauty, moves me emotionally. Feeling nature’s cycles of birth, growth, death and decay feeds much of my work.
Mythology, origin stories and parables fascinate me and provide a lens for exploring identity within social and cultural contexts.
Dreams are also important to me, as inspiration. I am working on a series now that came to me in a dream. The execution of that dream is a joyful challenge.
‘I find immense pleasure in the act of creation itself and my artistic practice is rooted in both substance and gesture’
Susan McDonald
Q: You use a combination tactile mixed media, can you tell us about your process?
A: I find immense pleasure in the act of creation itself and my artistic practice is rooted in both substance and gesture. I take two different approaches depending on the size and nature of the work. The first approach is building layers of paint, plaster, clay and other mixed media to create a stratum of meanings. Or I approach a work more gesturally and spontaneously, layering washes of very dilute paint over canvas over time. I allow deliberate choice to meet the grace of chance.
Q: You’ve just released a collection of prints with K&M. Could you tell us about these works?
A: Intense colours unite these prints! The works are vibrant; celebrating life at its best. Vivid layers of vermillion, ochre, petrol blue, pale turquoise and crimson suggest many things: sunrises, underwater life, planetary meetings, cellular expansion, life force and love.
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