Holly Macdonald

Holly MacDonald is a Glasgow based artist and curator, producing drawings and paintings themed on her interaction with the wild British landscape.

Her work aims to encourage positive and joyous relationships with rural life. Creating imagined, romanticised landscapes, Holly brings the viewer into the empowering energy of the natural world.

Graduating from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2018 having studied Painting (BA), Holly has worked as a practicing artist for the past three years. She completed a masters in Curatorial Practice (contemporary art) at the Glasgow School of Art in 2022.

Working in her Partick studio full time, she plan excursions around the Scottish highlands in search of places with secretive natures.

‘I am drawn to the beautiful solitude of the villages on the west coast of Scotland - they are rugged and dramatic, and you can sense the rich history in the trees, rocks, mountains and waves.

The small white houses peering out of the wilderness, like characters in a tapestry.’ This exhibition is titled Twinned with Mars, as the work is influenced by one particular village, Glenelg, which is in fact twinned with the planet Mars.

They are linked by name, however the breath-taking landscape often looks surreal and alien. Red rocks littering the beach, blood red skies and black clouds, glittering seas, water the colour of Guinness, purple and orange undergrowth, silver blue bark on trees, deep blue mountains and sharp orange sunsets.