There is a certain dark laughter that pervades much of Adell Donaghue’s art. My Pyrrhic Victory is one such etching, in which Donaghue offers a pastiche of images, some nostalgic or fanciful, others disturbing. An illuminated restaurant sign, the beefy “Del’s Restaurant” floats in the sky, a late-night invitation from a timeworn road trip. In the body of the print one can discern a circus tent and other dreamlike, somewhat ambiguous carnival figures; a proud almost stick-like performer rides a teetering elephant; SpongeBob SquarePants appears on the sidelines, foolishly giddy in the face of half-light adds to the mystery of time and place. Are we witnesses to the sad spectacle of individual memory, or to the collective unconscious as it would appear, under the Big Top?

A gigantic Ferris wheel seems god-like in the background, the tiny occupants of its gondolas are remote, suspended in time. A monster – half again as large as the Ferris wheel and barely restrained by thin ropes – looms over the scene. What does he represent, this blimp-like, pin-headed, bikini-clad Sumo wrestler? Is he the gargantuan threat?

If we look again closely, the performer atop the elephant seems a controlling, Lilliputian presence, attempting with small, elegant gestures, to command the chaos.

Elizabeth George
Author, Glass Teepee

When I see Adell’s work, I know this is an artist who can take me places. Adell’s work draws you into a breathtaking depth of emotion. you see beauty, you see hope, you feel danger and light – there is no single note that is struck when you take in her images. Her colors, plays of light and dark and subject matter delight to move you. For the past 30 years, one of her works has hung on a wall of every home I’ve lived in. Even after so many years of seeing her work, new facets reveal themselves to me. I have loved one of her etchings so much that I requested it as the cover of my new textbook, The Making of a Psychoanalyst, which Routledge Press enthusiastically accepted, and which was published in late 2017.

Dr. Claudia Luiz
Author, The Making of a Psychoanalyst