Rita MacDonald is a visual artist who makes detailed pencil drawings on paper and large site-responsive wall works from paint and plaster. Her work focuses on exploring the experience of place through its relationship to perception and visual association.

Her work has been exhibited widely, including at Smack Mellon, Wave Hill, The New York Studio School, The International Print Center, The Hyde Collection, 808 Gallery at Boston University, SUNY Ulster, Albany Center Gallery, and The John Michael Kohler Arts Center, among others. She’s completed several public art commissions including two permanent mosaics for subway stations in Brooklyn for the MTA Arts & Design Program and has recently completed a large site-specific project in Manhattan for Google’s Artist in Residence Program.

Rita holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA from School of Visual Arts. She currently lives and works in Olivebridge, NY.

While here at the IEA and working with Thomas, I was able to complete five woodblock prints in an edition of 26 prints each. The prints began as digital drawings which we then cut into plywood on the Epilog Laser Cutter and subsequently printed and editioned on the Flatbed Offset Press. The imagery of the prints is directly related to a body of work that I’ve been working on for several years of large site-responsive wall drawings. In both, I use patterns from textiles as my starting point to explore the experience of place through its relationship to perception, and I’m primarily interested in exploiting the work’s formal ability to toggle between being read as a minimalist abstraction, and being read as a recognizable observations of a piece of everyday decor.

Additionally, I also explored using an etching press to relief print sections of wooden floorboards. The ideas and imagery for this body of work is just starting to germinate, so it was incredibly helpful to have the time and freedom to experiment without totally knowing where the work will eventually take me.

Grounding, Woodcut Work Sample.

Rita MacDonald working with Myles Calvert, Director of the Institute for Electronic Arts, on editioning her print: Lapse.

Lapse, Woodcut Work Sample.

Rita removing the pulled print, Circuit, from the press.

Curcuit, Woodcut Work Sample.

Collection, Two-color Woodcut Work Sample.

Conclusion, Two-color Woodcut Work Sample.

Rita signing her editions.