Artist Bio
Ellen lives with her husband and their dog Scout very near the Black Dirt Region, a fertile stretch of farmland in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York. Core to her is a meditation practice, her marriage, her work as an artist and a psychotherapist. She loves to hike the paths in this beautiful valley and to encourage wildlife in an ever evolving environmentally sustainable landscape at her home.
Artist Statement
These paintings are the result of an attuned relationship with my own internal experience of being. They are the outcome of time spent in the cherished quiet of my studio, my refuge.
They are the ongoing response to a question I’d posed for myself almost ten years ago: What would happen if I gave myself the complete freedom to paint whatever I wanted? What if everything really is welcome? What would happen if I were to follow those inner leads, like finding a thread and feeling my way in the dark? What if I allowed myself to be open, imagining myself to be a creative “medium”? Would the images I painted start to repeat themselves? Would their meanings deepen or reveal other facets? Would they make any sense? Could they hold meaning for anyone else?
Painted on 3/4” plywood panels, I have chosen to scale them intimately, imaging they could be wrapped in a soft cloth and carried in a backpack. The touch, smell and feel of the material is important to me, as is the ritual of preparing the panels by sanding and priming them with rabbit skin glue.
The paintings are complete when they continue to be evocative, to have an aliveness and presence.
These paintings are the result of what had been an urge to process something not yet known or understood, but “on the tip of my tongue.” They often carry insights and bits of wisdom for me, which I may not have understood had I not had the experience of painting them. It is my hope that some of the paintings would elicit a glimpse of an insight, a sense memory, or a feeling of recognition in the viewer.
CV
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS (*One person Shows)
2024 The Amity Gallery, Warwick, NY 2001 *The Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY
2001 9/11 Show: Artists Respond, The Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY
1995 Joyce Goldstein Gallery, New York City
1993 Salon II, Art in General, New York City
1989 The Earth Remembered, The Hook Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
1986 Gallery Artists, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York City
The Lab School Portfolio, Brody Gallery, Washington DC
1985 *Stubborn Hope, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington DC
Political/Figurative, WPA sponsored, Andover, England
1984 Washington Womens Arts Center, Washington, DC
Painted Sculpture, St.Mary’s College, Maryland
Three Washingtonians, Brody Gallery, Washington, DC
1983 Emerging Perspectives, Meredith Gallery, Baltimore, MD
1982 10+10+10, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
1980 *Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC
*Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC
20 From DC, Lawndale Center, Houston, TX
Eight, 443 7th Street, Washington, DC
1978 36 Hours, Curated by Walter Hopps, The Museum of Temporary Art, Washington, DC
PUBLICATIONS
1986 Washington Projects for the Arts, 10 Years Catalog, Washington DC
1985 Review, Washington Times, October 17, 1985, Washington, DC
Review, Washington Post, October 5, 1985, Washington, DC
1982 10+10+10 Catalog, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
“Young Artists on the Way Up”, Washingtonian Magazine
1980 Review, Washington Post, Washington, DC
Review, Washington Star, Washington, DC
RELATED ACTIVITIES
1996 Designed a Memorial for the families of those aboard TWA’s Flight 800 which crashed off Long Island in 1997
1985 Resident Artist, Art Park, Lewiston, NY
Silk Screened Print published for the Lab School Portfolio, Washington, DC
Curator, The Options Show, Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC
Drawings Series Published throughout The Short Story Issue of The Washington Review, Washington, DC
1983 Collaboration with the Open Studio Theater Co., performed in Washington DC and New York City
Permanent Collections
The National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
Education
1973-1975 University of North Texas, Denton, TX
1975-1977 The Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC
2004 BFA, BSW, Empire State University, New York, NY
2007 MSW, Fordham University, New York, NY
Press
"MacDonald's pictures hold one's gaze. The stories they relate are hinted at, not stated...Order yearned for, order lost, faith and faith destroyed, the distant and the near are layered in her art. Her paintings are intensely felt, imposing." -- Paul Richard, The Washington Post
"...Ellen MacDonald's show, titled 'Stubborn Hope: Recent Paintings,' is startling, both in images and presentation...These are powerfully disturbing pictures...offering three tantalizing studies of the frightening isolation that is, one suspects, the dominion of millions of TV's." -- Michael Welzenbach, The Washington Times