Profile
Janie M McDonald
2022
My Practice is multi disciplinary, I make and exhibit work and I make socially engaged art with people. I make work in series while exploring an idea or theme, often working on them for several years. I am interested in the spaces that are hidden between common place things, and in ideas of things falling apart and being put back together in another form, in another time and place. I have always been interested in place, in notions of home and what ‘things’ we need to have with us in order to feel a sense of home.
I am currently making work about our emotional connections to ‘things; exploring ideas around collections and displays of ‘things’ and asking questions about the nature of personal archives, particularly how an archive can only tell part of a story.
I am concerned with giving things which are invisible, a material presence, making physical things out of the ghostly realm of the feeling and memory that is attached to objects and transforming them into some kind of materiality.
MA Fine Art Arts University Plymouth 2021
BTEC HNC Stitch & Constructed Textiles West Cheshire College 2004
BTEC HND Design Crafts – Ceramics College of Art & Design, NEWI 1986
BTEC OND Studio Ceramics College of Art & Design, NEWI 1984
Mix Tape, Leadworks Plymouth, Sept 2022
Crucible at Leadworks, Plymouth, Sept 2021
MA Open, Plymouth College of Art, Sept 2021
Music & Memories at the Betjemen Centre and Wadebridge Library, July/Aug 2019
The Story Box at the North Cornwall Book Festival – Oct 2018
Coat for Wilfred Owen at Bodmin Keep – April 2018
Shire Hall Gallery residency and exhibition with Ashley Hanson – May 2017
The Crypt, St Ives – August 2016
The Art Studio, Porthleven – July 2016
Shire Hall Gallery residency and exhibition with Ashley Hanson – May 2016
Shire Hall Gallery residency and exhibition with Ashley Hanson – May 2015
The Big Colyton Art Show, Devon – March 2015
St Mabyn Post Office Gallery – November 2014
Solo exhibition of ‘Routes’, Hewitt’s, Wadebridge – June 2014
Shire Hall Gallery residency and exhibition with Ashley Hanson – June 2014
Solo exhibition, The Picture and Coffee house, Wadebridge – May 2014
The Lifeboat Station Gallery, Porthleven – June/July 2013
Shire Hall Gallery residency and exhibition with Ashley Hanson – June 2013
The Salthouse, St Ives – May 2013
The Crypt, St Ives – April 2013
Bay Gallery, Penzance with Taking Space -Dec/Jan 2013
Rock Institute, Wadebridge – Dec 2012
Solo Exhibition at the Bay Gallery, Hotel Penzance, Cornwall August 2012
Shire Hall Gallery residency and exhibition with Ashley Hanson – June 2012
‘Miniature’ at Cupola Gallery, Sheffield – March 2012
The Sketchbook World Tour starting in Brooklyn USA and ending in Melbourne Australia – all through 2012
Rock Institute, Wadebridge – December 2011
The Best of Open Studios, Chapel Gallery, Gulval, Penzance – August 2011
Shire Hall Gallery, residency and exhibition with Ashley Hanson – June 2011
Truro Arts Shop Window, residency as part of Truro Arts Festival May 2011
Rock Institute, Wadebridge – December 2010
Link Exhibition Space, Royal Cornwall Hospital – June 2010
‘New Work’ @ Rock Institute, Wadebridge – Dec 2009
West Cheshire College, display space – June 2004
Aberystwyth Arts Centre – July 2001
Xmas Crafts Exhibition, Stanley Palace, Chester – Dec 2000
Tree Dressing Festival, Denbighshire 1997
Manchester Metropolitan University, display space 1996
Xmas Ceramic Exhibition, Oriel Bangor 1991
Xmas Craft Exhibition, Llanarmon Grange 1991
North Wales Potters Exhibition, Jim Robison Gallery, Holmfirth 1991
3 Designers, Multi-media Exhibition, Windsor Arts Centre 1991
Craft Showcase solo exhibition at Wrexham Library Arts Centre 1991
North Wales Potters Xmas Exhibition, Rhyl Library 1990
‘Carnival of Colour’ at Ned Heywood Gallery, Chepstow 1990
‘Glass and Ceramics’, at Holmfirth Art Gallery, Huddersfield 1990
Welsh Crafts Council Showcase : St. David’s Hall, Cardiff, Caernarfon Library, Carmarthen Library and Wrexham Library Arts Centre 1990.
‘Easel Bound Trees’, Clwyd Artists Exhibition 1989.
‘Flora’ at the Goldsborough Gallery, Harrogate 1989.
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, International Ceramics Festival – 1989
‘North Goes South’ at Taflen, Cardiff 1989
Xmas Exhibitions 1988,1986, Ruthin Craft Centre
Xmas Exhibition 1987, Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno
Studios on the High Street Lanson, Tresorys Kernow, 2022
Bill’s Attic, Krowji 2020
Stwdio Maelor, Corris 2020
