#36 Jade Donaldson

#36 on the Brochure

Artist showing at: 615 Adamsville Rd., Westport, MA 02790

Jade Donaldson

BOTH TOURS

OIL/WATERCOLOR/CYANOTYPE: Landscapes and botanicals infused with nature’s magic

jade.donaldson@gmail.com

https://www.jadedonaldson.net/

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Jade Donaldson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Little Compton. An alumna of the Brown-RISD Dual Degree program, she received a B.F.A. in Illustration (RISD) and a B.A. in Modern Culture and Media (Brown). She arrived in Little Compton in 2015, putting hands to work in cultivation of plants and design. The colors, textures, landscapes and forms she encounters in her daily vocation as a fine landscape gardener have significant presence in her work, and botanical subjects appear with frequency.

Work with plants is shaped by powerful forces beyond human jurisdiction: the sun, rain, wind and activity of other living beings (some visible to the naked eye and some too miniscule to be gleaned by our scope of visual perception). This relinquishment of control and integration into the flow of all things is a fascinating challenge, and as necessary in the studio as it is in the garden. Just as in her horticultural work, Jade’s artistic practice involves attunement in observing, listening and responding to living energetic phenomena - some concrete and some mysterious. Long walks in the woods and on the beach are integral to her practice as sources of wonder, inspiration and mental clearing that allows for surprising gifts to be received.

Recently, her work includes oil landscapes painted like portals inside of wooden boxes, botanical illustrations in varying media and cyanotypes using materials of the meadow - grasses, seedheads. Not constrained to any particular medium, Jade follows the work where it leads her, be it to drawing, painting, collage, photography, book-making and beyond.