Press Release

Artist Bio

 

Centric 64: Euan Macdonald: some summer day
August 26 - October 12, 2003

In the ongoing series dedicated to emerging artists, Centric 64 Euan Macdonald: some summer day, featured three new DVD projections by the talented Los-Angeles-based artist. On view were three including, house (everythinghappesatonce) (1999), healer (2002) and snail (2003), which were all shot from a stationary camera and intentionally lacked special effects. Macdonald focuses in on mundane, found imagery seen in real time from a fixed camera angle, and the pace of the work is intentionally slow to create a hypnotic state, thus tying to the themes of simultaneity, entropy, mysticism, memory and boredom. Very little action takes place in the video, but viewed collectively, the work captures illusive, big-picture ideas such as the passage of time.  By focusing on simple, everyday occurrences in life. Macdonald’s artistic intention is to articulate the depth of meaning contained within modest moments.

Centric, which began in 1981, is an ongoing series of exhibitions dedicated to introducing the University Art Museum ausidence to work by individual artists that has not previously been shown in a Southen California Museum.

Image Credit: Euan Macdonald, healer, 2002, still, single-channel dvd/video projection, 5 minutes. Courtesy of the artist and Cohan and Leslie, New York.