Patricia McDonald: Bachelor of Fine Arts, Sculpture

Left to Right: The Boccioni Defense: The Durability of Movement, Untitled (Garden Piece), Venus
Patricia McDonald

Patricia McDonald
Fragment I, Fragment II, Fragment III, Fragment IV, Fragments V
with detailed drawings

Originally attracted to sculpture through architecture, many of McDonald's pieces convey a sense of simple and clean design. In her pieces titled Fragments I through Fragments V, she breaks up simple shapes into fragments and carefully balances each piece to create a continually moving and changing form.  McDonald strives for simplicity and precision, which is reflected in her color choices as well as construction. Restricting her pieces to black, white, and red elements, space and form remain the primary concern of her sculptures.

While her Fragments series relies on chance to create a continually moving sculpture, McDonald has also used motors to create moving pieces of art. Revolution in Black and White uses a small battery powered motor to rotate a triangular form balanced on a pyramidal base. Her outdoor sculpture Umbra, located outside University Art Gallery, relies on solar power to rotate two metal arms extending from a base constructed of I-beams.

Although Patricia McDonald’s sculptures vary in size and content, she embraces the medium of each of her pieces through the form and texture used. Her large scale Untitled (Garden Piece) utilizes form and scale to create a space of its own that the viewer may interact with. Although it looks weighted and heavy, it is actually constructed of Styrofoam and clay with a wooden base. The clay applied to the surface and painted white creates an interesting texture reminiscent of interior spaces, reinforcing the space that the sculpture creates.

McDonald also embraces material in her figural sculptures, titled Venus and The Boccioni Defense: The Durability of Movement. In Venus, she uses plaster casts to create fragments of a human figure, which are then connected to be in proportion to an actual figure. The exterior is smooth, much like a classical sculpture of a figure, but the interior is exposed to be a rough and unworked interpretation of plaster. The Boccioni Defense is cast as a more complete figure, but with the head and torso hollow from the front view. She creates texture on the exterior of this piece with plaster and paraffin wax, allowing the material to drip and run down to the base.

 Patricia McDonald is graduating at the end of the semester with her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture. Her work, along with the three other graduates of the BFA program, will be on display until December 13th, with a reception on December 5th from 4:30 to 7 pm.



Amy Gibas
Gallery Assistant
University Art Gallery
Saginaw Valley State University