Jillian McDonald, "Dark Side"
2022
Walnut ink on Tyvek
Dark Side, 2022 is from a series of drawings of holes in the earth and roots underground, made during the pandemic. Starting in 2020, I drew holes on paper. The first drawings were animal burrows and entrances to tunnels, as I imagined escape routes and portals via a tiny yard, out of the Brooklyn apartment where I was isolated with my daughter. Later drawings were ruptures in the earth, signals of climate change and collapse. Some of these are sinkholes where the surface area is subterranean; moulins or tunnels in glaciers created by meltwater; gas emission craters, where melting permafrost releases enormous volumes of trapped gas in an explosive crater-forming event; or the infamous Gates of Hell in Turkmenistan — a fiery crater left burning since a 1971 Soviet drilling accident. The hole drawings are named with phrases that include the word “deep”, for example Deep State, Deep Breath, and Deep Meaning. I also drew roots underground, leaving the roots themselves as negative space in the solid coloured soil shapes around them, which are holes as well. The roots drawings are titled by phrases that start with “dark”, such as Dark Web, Dark Days, and Dark Times.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I make videos and drawings that are set in the natural world. The videos are inspired by eco-horror and speculative fiction, filled with unreal elements in strange settings. In these works, the landscapes are protagonists rather than backdrops on which action unfolds. Tunnel and Radio Skies (2024) depicts a lone traveller who digs a hole which creates a portal between locations enhanced by visual radio waves, created with the help of artificial intelligence. In other videos, a hand caresses mosses and mushrooms like a curious animal, and Google’s ready-made 3D animals stand tentatively at the edge of giant holes in the earth, filmed with augmented reality. My drawings depict ecologically imperiled nature: holes in the permafrost; smoke from oil spills; and Arctic ice among sunken ships. As James Bridle writes in “Ways of Being," extreme climate events are perhaps a violent demonstration of how the planet will carry on without humans – de-emphasizing human exceptionalism.
ARTIST BIO
Jillian McDonald lives in Brooklyn and Troy, NY. Her work has been exhibited and screened at venues including Undercurrent Gallery, Air Circulation, and FiveMyles in Brooklyn; aCinema in Milwaukee, Philip Steele Gallery in Denver, The Esker Foundation in Calgary, and AxeNéo7 in Québec City. A CBC Ideas documentary profiles her work, which was also featured in The New York Times, Art Papers, and Canadian Art. Critical discussion appears in books like The Transatlantic Zombie by Sarah Lauro, and Deconstructing Brad Pitt, edited by Christopher Schaberg. Awards include grants from The New York Foundation for the Arts and The Canada Council for the Arts, and residencies at The Arctic Circle Expedition in Svalbard, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York, The Headlands Center for the Arts in California, and The Banff Center for the Arts in Canada. In 2024, she is in residence at Harvestworks in New York.
2022
Walnut ink on Tyvek
Dark Side, 2022 is from a series of drawings of holes in the earth and roots underground, made during the pandemic. Starting in 2020, I drew holes on paper. The first drawings were animal burrows and entrances to tunnels, as I imagined escape routes and portals via a tiny yard, out of the Brooklyn apartment where I was isolated with my daughter. Later drawings were ruptures in the earth, signals of climate change and collapse. Some of these are sinkholes where the surface area is subterranean; moulins or tunnels in glaciers created by meltwater; gas emission craters, where melting permafrost releases enormous volumes of trapped gas in an explosive crater-forming event; or the infamous Gates of Hell in Turkmenistan — a fiery crater left burning since a 1971 Soviet drilling accident. The hole drawings are named with phrases that include the word “deep”, for example Deep State, Deep Breath, and Deep Meaning. I also drew roots underground, leaving the roots themselves as negative space in the solid coloured soil shapes around them, which are holes as well. The roots drawings are titled by phrases that start with “dark”, such as Dark Web, Dark Days, and Dark Times.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I make videos and drawings that are set in the natural world. The videos are inspired by eco-horror and speculative fiction, filled with unreal elements in strange settings. In these works, the landscapes are protagonists rather than backdrops on which action unfolds. Tunnel and Radio Skies (2024) depicts a lone traveller who digs a hole which creates a portal between locations enhanced by visual radio waves, created with the help of artificial intelligence. In other videos, a hand caresses mosses and mushrooms like a curious animal, and Google’s ready-made 3D animals stand tentatively at the edge of giant holes in the earth, filmed with augmented reality. My drawings depict ecologically imperiled nature: holes in the permafrost; smoke from oil spills; and Arctic ice among sunken ships. As James Bridle writes in “Ways of Being," extreme climate events are perhaps a violent demonstration of how the planet will carry on without humans – de-emphasizing human exceptionalism.
ARTIST BIO
Jillian McDonald lives in Brooklyn and Troy, NY. Her work has been exhibited and screened at venues including Undercurrent Gallery, Air Circulation, and FiveMyles in Brooklyn; aCinema in Milwaukee, Philip Steele Gallery in Denver, The Esker Foundation in Calgary, and AxeNéo7 in Québec City. A CBC Ideas documentary profiles her work, which was also featured in The New York Times, Art Papers, and Canadian Art. Critical discussion appears in books like The Transatlantic Zombie by Sarah Lauro, and Deconstructing Brad Pitt, edited by Christopher Schaberg. Awards include grants from The New York Foundation for the Arts and The Canada Council for the Arts, and residencies at The Arctic Circle Expedition in Svalbard, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York, The Headlands Center for the Arts in California, and The Banff Center for the Arts in Canada. In 2024, she is in residence at Harvestworks in New York.
2022
Walnut ink on Tyvek
Dark Side, 2022 is from a series of drawings of holes in the earth and roots underground, made during the pandemic. Starting in 2020, I drew holes on paper. The first drawings were animal burrows and entrances to tunnels, as I imagined escape routes and portals via a tiny yard, out of the Brooklyn apartment where I was isolated with my daughter. Later drawings were ruptures in the earth, signals of climate change and collapse. Some of these are sinkholes where the surface area is subterranean; moulins or tunnels in glaciers created by meltwater; gas emission craters, where melting permafrost releases enormous volumes of trapped gas in an explosive crater-forming event; or the infamous Gates of Hell in Turkmenistan — a fiery crater left burning since a 1971 Soviet drilling accident. The hole drawings are named with phrases that include the word “deep”, for example Deep State, Deep Breath, and Deep Meaning. I also drew roots underground, leaving the roots themselves as negative space in the solid coloured soil shapes around them, which are holes as well. The roots drawings are titled by phrases that start with “dark”, such as Dark Web, Dark Days, and Dark Times.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I make videos and drawings that are set in the natural world. The videos are inspired by eco-horror and speculative fiction, filled with unreal elements in strange settings. In these works, the landscapes are protagonists rather than backdrops on which action unfolds. Tunnel and Radio Skies (2024) depicts a lone traveller who digs a hole which creates a portal between locations enhanced by visual radio waves, created with the help of artificial intelligence. In other videos, a hand caresses mosses and mushrooms like a curious animal, and Google’s ready-made 3D animals stand tentatively at the edge of giant holes in the earth, filmed with augmented reality. My drawings depict ecologically imperiled nature: holes in the permafrost; smoke from oil spills; and Arctic ice among sunken ships. As James Bridle writes in “Ways of Being," extreme climate events are perhaps a violent demonstration of how the planet will carry on without humans – de-emphasizing human exceptionalism.
ARTIST BIO
Jillian McDonald lives in Brooklyn and Troy, NY. Her work has been exhibited and screened at venues including Undercurrent Gallery, Air Circulation, and FiveMyles in Brooklyn; aCinema in Milwaukee, Philip Steele Gallery in Denver, The Esker Foundation in Calgary, and AxeNéo7 in Québec City. A CBC Ideas documentary profiles her work, which was also featured in The New York Times, Art Papers, and Canadian Art. Critical discussion appears in books like The Transatlantic Zombie by Sarah Lauro, and Deconstructing Brad Pitt, edited by Christopher Schaberg. Awards include grants from The New York Foundation for the Arts and The Canada Council for the Arts, and residencies at The Arctic Circle Expedition in Svalbard, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York, The Headlands Center for the Arts in California, and The Banff Center for the Arts in Canada. In 2024, she is in residence at Harvestworks in New York.