Jock McDonald: The Light of Water

Jock McDonald: The Light of Water

Harvey Milk Terminal 1

Departures Level 2
Mar 19, 2019 - Jul 29, 2019

The water we share on this planet is unifying; it is a system of circles moving from the visible to the invisible.

—Jock McDonald, 2015

Jock McDonald: The Light of Water

In his series, The Light of Water, Napa-based artist Jock McDonald reflects on the cyclical qualities of water and its ability to transform, unify, and connect each of us to the natural world. Utilizing images of the ocean, clouds, and tide pools made during his travels in Cuba over the past ten years, McDonald works in his studio to carefully deconstruct multiple large-scale prints of each photograph. Working by hand, he intertwines and rejoins the photographs to produce a single woven object. In doing so, McDonald abstracts the images and introduces an aqueous quality that draws attention to the surface of the photograph and invites viewers to meditate upon their own relationship with water.

Jock McDonald, born in Vancouver, Canada in 1961, opened his art studio in San Francisco in 1986. He is a self-taught photographer whose work has achieved national and international acclaim for its distinctive understanding of humanity, our shared commonalities, and its qualities of mystery. McDonald’s work has been widely published and exhibited in venues around the world, with exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, and Cuba. His photographs are held in numerous institutional and corporate collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and Fototeca de Cuba in Havana. 

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