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What is ADS Donaldson up to? It is a question rarely asked, almost as if his work speaks, directly and unproblematically, for itself.
A recent Australian exhibition of Donaldson's work consisted of polychrome abstracts made of brightly coloured cloth, cut into squares and rectangles, sewn onto cotton wadding. (Sarah Cottier Gallery, 1996.) The colours were bright, close to primary, close to tones that we recognise or seem to remember. The invitation postcard featured a holiday snap of the artist's wife posed against a rental car in front of Capitol Hill.
At Sydney's CBD gallery in 1995, Donaldson exhibited an assemblage of uncoloured wooden beams, of varying lengths and in various configurations, changing daily, recalling the cuisenaire counting rods of 1960s' schooling. In 1994 he produced the first of his Pour Paintings, by allowing paint to run down a canvas or board and then halting the process.
In 1992, an exhibition at the Yuill Crowley Gallery juxtaposed a series of dark blue monochromes featuring 'constellations' of buttons (taken from his late grandmother's button collection) with casts taken from travel sickness bags. That same year he produced five monochromatic forms that seemed to be a cross between tents and umbrellas.
These are select examples from a prolific and varied output over the last ten years. The work seems to be located on a terrain organised by abstraction, minimalism and conceptual art, and it certainly explores a number of questions associated with these projects. Yet the best of this work is not reducible to such simple questions: nor does it allow an easy answer to the question of what ADS Donaldson is doing in his art.
Certainly form is primary: its issues and... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline