Zoë MacDonell’s Sweet Edge is a deeply personal exploration, delving into the timeless questions about origins, purpose and destiny.  

Ancient civilisations looked to the heavens for answers to the great existentialist questions and for direction.  In doing so they would reference and image earthly artefacts and create rituals to connect them to a higher order. Christianity uses the wooden cross as a potent symbol; the pharaohs built pyramids; and the Indigenous peoples of the Australian desert painted on rock walls and connect by ceremony to their Dreamtime. All speak of realms apart from everyday concerns with shelter, food, defence. In the natural world, however, close observation of ‘signs’ yields glimpses of how our physical world came to be.

MacDonell is not endeavouring to create icons or to develop a new brand of esoterica. Rather, she layers delicate swathes of silk and collage on a surface, then paints the history of an imagined landscape. Her methodology leads us through the minor moments in the landscape as well as giving us an aerial view, creating a new perspective. MacDonell’s landscape therefore is not site-specific, being sourced in her extensive experience of place, from Antarctica, Africa and Japan and to her homes in the UK and Australia. 

MacDonell is one of Australia’s most exciting young artists, defining a new language to discuss visually our oldest questions.