SNORT!! is the title of Angus McDonald’s latest exhibition that opens at Tim Olsen Gallery in Sydney on the 11th March. The exhibition comprises 45 pieces of work including paintings, drawings, lithographs, bronzes, sculpture and unique furniture.
SNORT!! predominantly includes work with the bull as subject but also encompasses still-life paintings and landscapes. McDonald says, “In each drawing and painting I make with the bull as a subject, I am trying to reveal an essence that describes a kind of honesty and strength that I perceive to be reflective of their particular sensibilities. It’s a romantic notion to some extent.”

As an art student, McDonald found Ernest Hemingway’s brief, direct writing style attractive. In simple terms, McDonald decided that he wanted to paint the same way that Hemingway wrote. McDonald says, “As much of Hemingway’s writings concerned bullfighting, I was also drawn into that story, that piece of Spanish theatre that resonates much more as an idea about the nature of existence than it does in its bloody reality. Eventually I formed views about the bull and the horse. I have always felt these animals to have a secret bank of wisdom and knowledge that we can only imagine but never understand.”

One of McDonald’s mixed media bull drawings was a finalist in the 2007 Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. As well as the drawings and paintings of bulls and horses, McDonald has produced still life paintings and landscapes for the SNORT!! show. “All my work is about light moving across spaces and across forms; that is the essence of still life painting and the intrigue of landscape that has the additional wonder of sheer scale. The paintings and drawings of bulls and horses are more narrative but are still concerned with that same way of looking.”
McDonald has further developed his interest in the bovine form by designing several new objects of furniture. Among them is a the AWR Studio Furniture Design Award winning ‘Ferdinand’ Rocker, together with the ‘Profile’ armchair in cowhide, that was created as a collaboration with designer Matt Butler.
McDonald says, “The bull’s form lends itself to furniture: the way they are physically put together, their strength and muscularity, is beautifully simple and balanced. It is a sculptural exercise but also considerations of function and comfort are of supreme importance with furniture that makes them more complex pieces to resolve than just straight out sculpture. Each piece is handmade and the finish is crucial with them. Also we get to moo a lot. ”