Niall Macdonald (born Outer Hebrides of Scotland, 1980, based in Glasgow) produces objects that constellate to form uncertain and often metaphysical landscapes. His objects take the form of vases, bowls, wall reliefs or totems, which conspire together in order to amplify the associations they share, rather than acting as autonomous works to be viewed in isolation. Macdonald interrogates the exhibition space as a holistic environment, and although his practice is underscored by striking formal and aesthetic qualities (that might otherwise suggest conceptual restraint and abstraction), he uses such devices to construct uneasy fictive scenarios or relational tableaux.
The artist’s practice embraces a diverse spectrum of influences, from the evidently formal inflections of Donald Judd and Lucio Fontana, to more literary and metaphysical precursors, which include the sermons and poetry of John Donne and perhaps also the ruptured landscapes and conflicting visions of Paul Nash’s paintings. These latter influences are united by an interest in the construction of worlds at one remove from our own (or perhaps worlds made visible via the artist’s constructions). And while Macdonald’s works do provide a multiplicity of aesthetic readings, his sculptural compositions nonetheless posit objects as possibilities – they serve as propositions to or potential tipping points between the rational concrete world and the imagined one.
Vases and vessels of varying scale often assume the role of such propositions in Macdonald’s practice. These recurring motifs appear as surrogates for corporeality – the neck, breast and body of the containers are unambiguous metaphors for presence. Yet their supposed ‘functionality’ serves as a more complex ruse, and Macdonald is careful to regulate the viewer’s familiarity with these objects. The work does not seek to establish its ‘likeness’ to objects beyond the gallery, nor explore the failure of mimesis. Instead, Macdonald creates a scene which shows an object trembling on the threshold between that which it is, and that which we know; that which it represents, and that which it contradicts.
