MACDONELL
“A true artist realizes how little time they actually have. Thus, they are always filled with a sense of urgency. They understand completely the bargain they have made: that one’s calling, one’s great sense of purpose requires a lifetime of risk and sacrifice; that the truth itself is no guarantor of success, and that their great reward may well be to labor in obscurity. Still, they remain. Undeterred. I can say only... trust your intuition, stay diligent, the world is full of wonders.”
– James Macdonell
“James Macdonell is an artist who has an uncanny gift to "put it all together" in sculpture, in photography, in things we might name later. That “all” includes traces of apparitions and moments that he has found the generosity to reveal for us.”
— Mel Chin
“With dignity and appreciation, I investigate familiar subject matter like survival, loss, abandonment, the forces of nature, mythology, and history through the lens of metamorphosistransmutation, and regeneration.”
“A mid-career shift impacted the nature of James Macdonell's material output. His acute consciousness of time itself, combined with disciplined devotion to the creative journey, gave shape to a near-extinct world where art and life are a harmonic union, a land where discarded found objects become transformed treasure.”
— Dawn DeDeaux
“James Macdonell continues to mine the worlds of sight and sound in acts of open-ended creativity. His visual compositions combine the conceptual and the tactile to create objects and environments that always engage and delight.”
— David Houston
“One of the most prolific artists I know.”
—Richard ‘Dickie’ Landry
