Angus McDonald (artist)

Angus McDonald (born 1961) is an Australian contemporary visual artist, refugee advocate, columnist and documentary filmmaker.

Angus McDonald

Early life and education

Angus McDonald was born in Sydney[1] in 1961.[2] He earned an Economics degree at the University of Sydney,[3] and later (1993–5[4]) studied painting at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney.[2] He travelled to the small island of Leros, Greece, and lived and painted there from 1996 to 1999.[4]

In 2000 he was accepted as a student at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts in Italy.[3][4] Upon his return to Australia in 2001 he settled in the Lennox Head region in New South Wales[1] and in 2003 in Lennox Head itself.[5]

Art

McDonald was a visual artist, mainly a painter (although he didn't use a paintbrush until he was 31),[6] for around 25 years before he started making films, from around 2017.[1]

His works have been avidly collected, and exhibited internationally, including a 2007 London exhibition[6] which showed his work after painting an Antarctic expedition with the Mawson's Huts expedition. He returned to Antarctica in 2008/9 as an artist in residence for Aurora Expeditions.[4] He is renowned for his landscapes and still life paintings.[6]

Archibald Prize finalist

As of 2020, McDonald's portraits have been finalists for the Archibald Prize art competition six times.[5]

  • In 2009, McDonald painted artist Zoe MacDonell[7]
  • In 2011, he painted Ann Lewis[7]
  • In 2012, McDonald entered a portrait of artist Tim Maguire[7]
  • In 2015, a portrait by McDonald of singer Abbe May was a finalist[8]
  • In 2019 he painted lawyer, writer and former refugee Mariam Veiszadeh[2]
  • In 2020 McDonald's portrait of Kurdish Iranian writer and journalist and former Manus refugee, Behrouz Boochani, was selected for the People's Choice Award.[9][10]

Film and social advocacy

In 2016 McDonald became interested in human rights and refugee issues after travelling across the Greek islands (including Leros, where he had lived a couple of decades earlier) to see how the local communities dealt with the huge numbers of asylum seekers who had arrived in 2015 and 2016 via the Mediterranean Sea, mainly from Syria via Turkey. He was struck by the more humane way that the Greeks treated these huge numbers of migrants, compared with the Australian Government's treatment of a relatively few who had arrived by boat in Australian territorial waters.[5]

McDonald established a social justice project called Howling Eagle, which advocates for humane treatment and raises public awareness of asylum seekers. The project began releasing videos on YouTube in 2018, under the title "Philoxenia" (Greek for "extending hospitality and friendship to the stranger").[1]

McDonald was ambassador for World Vision's KidsOffNauru Campaign, and is on the Sydney Committee for Human Rights Watch Australia and Asia.[3]

Manus

In 2019, McDonald's short (13-minute) film Manus was released, about the stand-off between the asylum seekers in the Manus Island detention centre and the authorities, around the time the detention facility was closed at the end of 2017, after they had been there for about six years. The film was shot by Australian journalist Olivia Rousset, and used only clips from interviews with the men to create the narrative.[11] It includes a poem called "Manus Poem" written and narrated in Farsi by Behrouz Boochani, a prominent Kurdish Iranian former asylum seeker held on Manus Island.[1]

Manus was awarded Best Documentary at the 2019 St. Kilda Film Festival, and was an official selection for the Byron Bay International Film Festival in 2020, the Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFFest) in York, UK, in November 2020. It has been allowed to qualify for entry to the 2020 Oscars in the Documentary Short category by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.[1] It also won Best Documentary at the 2020 FIFO (Festival International du Film Documentaire Océanien) in Tahiti.[12][13]

Writing

In 2020, McDonald began writing a weekly social commentary column for the Northern Rivers Review.[14]

References
  1. McDonald, Angus (4 October 2019). "Meet the Filmmaker – Angus McDonald". Byron Bay International Film Festival (Interview). Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  2. "Archibald Prize Archibald 2019 finalist: Mariam Veiszadeh by Angus McDonald". Art Gallery of New South Wales. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  3. "About". Angus McDonald. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  4. "Angus McDonald [Artist profile]". Greenhill Galleries. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  5. McDonald, Angus (18 September 2020). "Q&A with Archibald finalist Angus McDonald". Echo Netdaily (Interview). Interviewed by Lowe, David. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  6. "Angus McDonald: Recent paintings and drawings". Greenhill Galleries. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  7. Hawkes, Helen (16 March 2012). "Artist hoping for luck". The Northern Star. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  8. McDonald, John (17 July 2015). "Archibald Prize 2015: first-time finalists bring new life to the contest". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  9. "Archibald prize 2020: Angus McDonald's portrait of Behrouz Boochani wins people's choice award". The Guardian. 16 December 2020. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  10. "Portrait of Behrouz Boochani by Angus McDonald wins Archibald people's choice award". ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). 16 December 2020. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  11. Khalil, Mayada Kordy (21 December 2019). "Manus, the secretly filmed documentary". SBS Your Language. SBS. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  12. "Manus: Howling Eagle Productions". Nolan Verheij. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  13. "FIFO 2020 Film Selection". FIFO Tahiti. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  14. Moeller, Sophie (16 December 2020). "Portrait of a strong, confident and peaceful man wins 2020 Archibald Prize ANZ People's Choice award". Northern Rivers Review. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.