NANCY MACDONALD
Our teeth are reefs, our bones are stones.
- Robert Macfarlane
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I've spent a lifetime trying to comprehend my connection to nature. It's that unconscious, lung filling deep breath when you reach the ocean. Shoulders dropping. Hours that seem like minutes pass, lulled by the bubbly sounds of a brook bending around the trees. It's an irresistible urge to climb on the big rocks and to hold the little ones in your hands, keeping the special ones in your pockets. Sitting in the moss, questioning, how many colours of green can exist in the world? We often think of ourselves as separate from nature but we're a part of it, made of the same stuff. Connected.
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I was born in Northern Quebec but lived most of my early years in Nova Scotia. I did my growing up either in, on or around the trees and the ocean. Chasing opportunities as a professional artist, eventually I had to go live in the cities but never quite felt like I belonged there. Feeling uneasy. Feeling disconnected. It took a few years but I finally relented and found my way back to Nova Scotia. Deep breath in! I now realize how moved I am by the light, the colours and the smell of the salt air and evergreens, the stunning landscapes that surround my little old house on the river. I like to think that the birds outside my window enjoy watching me paint their portraits. As an artist you can't help fall in love with this place and feel a need to find ways to share the magic that it invokes.
I often take photos for reference but they never seem to capture all that I'm seeing or feeling. In my current work I've been experimenting with ways to translate what's in my mind's eye into physical images. As a photographer and a painter, I have been integrating the two mediums since my art school days. My process involves manipulating and collaging the photos I create, for reference to enhance certain elements and abstract others as a stepping stone to create ideas and to inform the marks that I will make with my pencils and paints.
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BIOGRAPHY
Nancy was born in Schefferville, QC and grew up in Trenton, Nova Scotia. She received her BFA in Fine Art from NSCAD University (1991). Nancy began her career as a professional artist working as a photographer for a regional Nova Scotia newspaper and went on to become a digital artist in the computer game industry, living in San Francisco, Toronto and Ottawa. After moving to the South Shore of Nova Scotia, Nancy began to transition away from her computer to focus on more traditional drawing and painting. Nancy is currently represented by the Laurie Swim Gallery in Lunenburg NS and is a member of the Lunenburg Art Gallery Society and VANS.