Andrew McDonald at Castlefield Gallery
Polly Checkland Harding
Manchester-based artist Andrew McDonald, who has exhibited nationally and was featured in British Art Show 6 in 2006, has worked with animation for two decades. This exhibition at Castlefield Gallery – a significant solo show of existing pieces alongside two new works – will showcase the pattern of repetition that dominates McDonald’s output and practice; the artist uses a graphics tablet to draw the iterative images needed to produce an animation directly onto a computer, while the animations themselves are often characterised by darkly comic loops.
Mc Donald’s new two-channel video installation Fence/Hammock, for instance, sees two figures striving for freedom: one is hopelessly entangled in his hammock, the other scales a fence and runs out of sight, only to reappear on screen and repeat the sequence endlessly. The artwork contends with the idea of what form of freedom is more desirable – escape from captivity or making piece with futility – but also draws a question about whose agency is at work here. Does the figure drive its own fate, or has the artist, as creator, contrived an impossible cycle in which the figure is trapped?
On the opening evening of the exhibition (Thursday 27 April, 6pm-8pm), The International 3 also launches WANDERLUST; a free coach service will operate between the two galleries on the evening, on a first come first served basis.
