27th April – 1st May 2020


Ranald Macdonald (b.1994)  is a London based artist and musician. He is currently in the final year of study of his BA in Fine Art at City and Guilds Of London. 

During this period of isolation I’ve been helping my mum with weeding her garden. Largely this has involved pulling out nettles, which I’ve discovered is all about finding the root. By groping in the darkness you have to let the root reveal itself, be led by it, and watch as it grows, thicker and hairier, like some great spider’s leg… When I try and visualise my making-process this experience comes to mind. The characters that populate the dreamlike world in my images are maybe like the nettles. They are found objects, readymades from art history, literature, and popular culture. I use them to lead me to my image, digging the fog of childhood interactions with TV, film, and early digital media until I get a glimpse of what I am looking for and can begin, with tentative steps, to excavate it. It is in this way they emerge, as pre-existing things, not designed in order to express an idea, but ideas, rendered in my work so they can be seen, unearthed.


See Ranald’s Instagram

Head of Buckeroo
Pencil on Paper
60 x 30 cm