Robert Macdonald (Exhibition, 28th Ocober 2010 - 28th December 2010)
Robert Macdonald is a painter, printmaker and writer who has, since the 1980's, lived at Penpont in the Usk Valley. A committee member of both the Welsh Group and the Watercolour Society of Wales, his watercolours of the National Park are widely exhibited and have won national prizes. Landscape, however, is a relatively new theme. His wide range of subject matter - mythical, surrealist, even satirical - reflects an unusual life.
Born in Britain in 1935, Robert was taken to New Zealand in 1945. He trained as a journalist and painted in his spare time. He helped run Hamilton's art gallery and became friendly with some of the founders of New Zealand Modernism. In 1958 he left New Zealand as a crew member of a sailing ship and arrived in London to study painting and printmaking at the Central School. Influenced by Jungian theories of the creative unconscious he became preoccupied with the imagery of dream and myth.
The author and illustrator of a book on New Zealand and the Maoris, The Fifth Wind, published in 1989, he also wrote the Minority Right's Group report, The Maori of New Zealand.
When the Beacons Way, a long-distance footpath along the length of the Black Mountains, Brecon Beacons and Black Mountain (Mynydd Du) was inaugurated in 2005, Robert was one of eight artists chosen to design a bronze plaque marking each of eight stops on the trail.
Robert's plaque is placed above the mountain lake, Llyn-y-Fan Fach and records the famous legend of the lake. This tells of a bewitching maiden who emerged from its depths and married a local farm lad, who was made to promise before their marriage that he would never strike her with iron. According to the legend, which may go back to the last years of the Bronze Age in the Welsh hills, the ill-fated local man tossed a bridle up to his wife one day when she was seated on her horse, and quite by accident the iron bit struck her. She dismounted and led back into the lake all the cattle and farm animals she had brought up from the depths with her as dowry for her mortal husband. This legend with its archetypal theme of descent into the underworld, of loss and eventual redemption, has long fascinated Robert who has employed it in many of his pictorial explorations.
There are over 50 Robert Macdonald works in the exhibition. Below are some examples of his work on show until 28th December 2010.
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 | 'Portrait of the Artist'
Ink, £275 (image size, 8" x 10" approx) |
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'Llan-y-Fan Fach' (Moonlit)
Reduction linocut, £420 (image size, 23.5" x 17.5" approx) |  |
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 | 'Town on the Usk'
Oil on board, £1650 (image size, 37" x 27" approx) |
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'Three Shearers'
Ink & watercolour, £345 (image size, 12" x 12" approx)
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 | 'Llanthony'
Watercolour with crayon, £895 (image size, 29" x 21" approx)
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'Stock Sales'
Ink & watercolour, £220 (image size, 12" x 12" approx)
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'Penpont Church'
Watercolour with crayon, £895 (image size, 30" x 22" approx)
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