John Donegan is an artist with a background in photojournalism. His artistic practice searches for the beauty in the menial and ordinary rhythms of everyday life, often highlighting the seemingly unimportant, insignificant, or unseen. ‘The Broken Creek’ marks a turning point, whereby Donegan is exploring finding peace within nature and himself. Allowing himself to enjoy his own company for the first time, Donegan finds old things to be seen anew. Sitting in the landscape he finds endless brown entwined with a myriad of bland greens. Unattractive and unpleasant, this landscape by the Rocks taunts him, yet Donegan finds a patience to hold still, listen and see. It is not the sublimity of landscape that interests Donegan, instead he finds pleasure in the sound of flies, scattered dead trees, and in frantic marching of ants. Imagining himself within the unexceptional rhythms of nature, this new body of work finds peace and comfort within, paying homage to the ordinary and habitual beats of life.
John Donegan
THE BROKEN CREEK
October 19-November 12, 2022