October 2021 / In The Backspace: Josh R. McDonald

In The Backspace

Carry Me Through the Field by Josh R. McDonald

October 07 – 30, 2021
Opening Reception / Thursday, October 07, 6-8pm

Autumn/Covid-19 Gallery Hours:
Friday–Sunday, 12pm–5pm and by appointment

In his first solo exhibition as a SOIL Gallery member, Josh R. McDonald created multiple small paintings on panel, all of which were made this past summer.

Each piece is intended to be displayed in a grid, forming a series of individual nostalgic reflections. His work was created instinctually, each painting like a short story. The purist moment needing to be captured in the quickest way possible, no time for alteration or further change.

Together these works make up a larger composition and series of stories meant to be read cohesively. While painting, Josh remembers the 1970s ranch house on a high desert farm. The architecture, interior colors and the retro decor. Plants, the fox and the cat tails, the poplars, big sage and juniper trees. Ditches in the fields that held the gardens of crops and oceans of green alfalfa. The sky, lightning and the thunder, forest fires and the smell of dirt before the rain. Birds of prey and animals, both domesticated and wild.

These are memories filtered through abstracted forms and left open for interpretation.