Adrian McDonald

Adrian McDonald thumbnail

Adrian McDonald is a Sydney based artist who has been exhibiting since 2003. His painting practice may be characterised as a mode of philosophical reflection, and as a response to the formal language of harmony of music. This work represents an ongoing engagement with the complex relationships that exist between notions of beauty, truth and freedom as they relate to the historical origins of both abstract and concrete art.

‘Approximating a Circle, 2018, is a work that I hope reflects the many conversations I’ve had with Richard Dunn over the last decade. Its basic premise is pretty simple. I’ve taken the numbers of pi as a determinant structural element in the work, and sought to reconcile this with the given limitations of the canvas and the way in which the paint is applied. I remember a fragment of a conversation with Richard about ‘gaps’ in my work, and while I’ve been painting lines, it’s really the gaps between them that are interesting to me. There are obvious historical points of reference here – Cage, Stella and Bochner for instance – but really, I see this work as part of a conversation with Richard, not least the way in which I have deranged the essential linear structure of a circle in order that, for the purposes of the painting, it may become a square.’