Hamish Macdonald
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ABOUT
We got to know of Hamish's work from a painting he did of David Burton and Jane McKee's bridal table back in 2000. This painting appears on the label of our Barossa Shiraz, "The Protagonist."
Hamish subsequently painted the "Usual Suspects" from a photo of me and several of our friends - so named because this is how Trish generally refers to them. We asked Hamish to make sure there was some female presence in the actual painting, so being the gracious bloke that he his, he made me into a girl. I've yet to thank him properly for that. From left to right, Ruan Perara, JSH, Mike Black, David Burton, Sandy Wilkinson, Johnny McCoy, Malcolm Booth and Ben Hyde.
Hamish lives in the South East of South Australia and more of his work can be found via the attached link.
BIOGRAPHY:
I was born in Millicent in 1970, to Sally and Byron Macdonald. With my sisters, Amanda and Natasha, and Lachlan my brother I grew up on our sheep and cattle grazing station just south of Lucindale, which I still call home. Here is where I set up my studio in 1997.
I was none the wiser, so after performing in an Unley youth production, “Teen Sex Scandal” in Sydney, as part of the ‘Gay and Lesbian Mardigras’ season, I left for ‘overseas’, for three and a half years. My little sister, Amanda is partly to blame that I picked up a pen to draw and paint for most of my time away, as she gave me a journal and a sketchbook.
The following years I worked the summers at a camp just out of New York. Spending the time in between travelling: down the west coast of the States via Colorado and Aspen, on a trip from Kenya to South Africa, working for a billiard company in Wiltshire/England, and doing quite a few trips to and around Europe. The trip through Africa with my sister Tash and a long time friend Katie, sticks out in my memory as very important and my first seriously painting orientated journey.
Finally a motorbike took me from New York to San Francisco where I boarded a plane to return home for Christmas 1996. I started living on the farm and basically got straight back into a normal life. I worked for a builder and for a few vineyards and farms in the area. My parents offered me one of the old buildings on our farm, the single mans quarters, which I turned into my studio, ‘LOCOSTUDIO’.
In 1999 my parents and I decided that it might be time for me to get involved in the Family business – the farm - in 2001 I took on the management here. I got married in 2002 and have been leading this life since, working on new farming strategies and trying to lead our business into the modern world of efficiency - being less labour intensive and more environmental friendly and sustainable.
I burnt myself badly in the holidays after finishing primary school at Lucindale, later that year after a long period in hospital I went on to St Peters College, an all boys boarding school in Adelaide and matriculated from there in 1987. Following on, I went straight to uni, where after 5 years of study and a lot of social and stage time, I graduated with a BA of Architectural Studies from ‘The University of Adelaide’.
BUT of course apart from ‘my job’ I have kept on painting, here on the farm, in my studio, mostly at nights – the quiet time, that gives me peace. Returning home and opening the studio here on the farm has given me the unique opportunity, combining my love for painting with my attachment to the land and the work I grew up with. I started painting on much larger scale and messed around with a new mediums, Enamel – oil based – paint, which I have stuck to from then on.
I have become involved with numerous Art Projects in the South East and Adelaide, have travelled overseas with exhibitions and have found permanent exposure in a few spaces, …and friends that without I might have never ended up being where I am. I am still an artist living in harmony with the thought that life is not just a painting but all the experience and challenges that go into it. At this point I would like to take the opportunity to thank: Mark de Nys, Merylin Cox, Guy Detot, Gray Hawk, Peter Rymill, Peter & Marg Muller, Mark Muller, Andrew McDowell, Steve Cooper, Paul & Mahalia Layzell, my family and friends and of course Christa, mostly for their encouragement of action, thought and passion throughout the years. It is hard to explain how important it is to know that there are people out there who will raise their hands up hight to help you keep up something not everybody does and CAN appreciate.
Additional Information
Website - http://www.locostudio.com.au
Featured on the wine: The Protagonist and the Usual Suspects