It’s no surprise that the anxieties and concerns of contemporary life can often be reflected in modern art. So it’s a surprise to encounter Peter McDonald. A graduate of the Royal Academy Schools, McDonald’s work offers a much needed antidote to the grimmer aspects of noughties Britain.

Within minutes of meeting McDonald at his studio in Dalston it’s clear to see the open and infectious enthusiasm for his art. His easy-going manner is also reflected in the images he creates. Ranging in size, each work is painted in flat, bold acrylic colours and they present a cast of characters, spaces and places that seek to remind us of our own world, whilst retaining a distinctive sense of their own happy otherness. When talking about his work McDonald mentions enjoying "he slowness of painting" and the "act of painting". He also claims that his work is "sometimes autobiographical", and that he tries "to create an image that the viewer can relate to in some way".

In his painting, Small Apartment, a variety of different characters are visible through the windows of a building. The scene is not particularly unusual, but the way in which the heads of these people warp, overlap and flow around the painting certainly is. Used as a means to charm and engage a viewer, McDonald’s way with form and colour is a consistent feature of all his work.

When asked how the paintings originate, McDonald is forthright, "From my everyday life, bus journeys to and from the studio, talking with friends, people watching, thinking at home, previous paintings".

The more McDonald talks about his paintings the more you come to realise that humour is a vital ingredient of his work.

"Absolutely,” he says. "It was a conscious effort to create art to make you happy, or to make people laugh. For me, I think it [humour] is quite a good way to connect to people; just to put people at ease, and then you can sort of start going into what the paintings might mean."

As he moves around the studio selecting other paintings to look at, it’s clear that some of the work MacDonald is most excited about is a series of painted, plaster sculptures. Unveiling a piece entitled Crying Mountain, he says his inspiration has been partly derived from Chinese Sung dynasty painters like Ching Hao, who "painted incredible imaginary landscapes in ink."

McDonald also uses bold colours and simplified, almost abstract forms, though Sung Dynasty painters were working hundreds of years ago, weren’t they?

McDonald explains that he admires the way those artists used varying washes of tone to deftly portray different parts of the landscape. Like them, he aims to create a familiar, but ultimately fantastic world by using an economy of visual means. As such, the twin waterfalls (the tears) in his sculpture Crying Mountain derive from those Chinese artists who painted flowing water with just a few measured strokes of ink so long ago.

McDonald’s sculptures are like "a complete universe. What I thought I quite liked about the sculptures was that while doing them I realised it’s almost like a gods-eye view of my world. The paintings always seem to be close-ups of what's going on in that room, or what's going on in that shop or one particular scene. They’re all really personal, micro moments. But the sculptures are almost like completely the opposite. You’re looking down on what's going on in this whole village, town or city."

As such each sculpture forms a part of this universe. Crying Mountain is representative of the earth or landscape, for example, while others provide the sky, sun, moon and stars. The fact that the shape of the whole sculpture is based on a head with an exaggerated quiff of hair forming the main body of the mountain, while the rest of the face makes the lowlands is an unexpected bonus.

Utopian ideals and desires are often associated with McDonald’s work and it’s understandable given the upbeat feel his art has. When asked if he ever tries to undermine this by introducing less positive subject matter, McDonald smiles. "I have done some paintings, for example, of an aerial view of a car crash with someone dead on the pavement and the car crumpled up, but then it was just a one off. It was an interesting moment, but not really what I wanted to be dwelling on. It’s not something I’d really want to look at everyday."

He’s also made a series of work based on airports. One painting called Unattended Luggage shows a runway and pilots seen through the head of a gun-carrying security officer. "I guess it does touch on the feeling of paranoia we all feel when flying now," he says.

Oh yeah.

Upload/Comment