Photo Credit: Marlies Stoddard
Reviews
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 GeorgeAuthor, 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
For more than forty years, I have worked as a professional artist in many capacities, including as a fine artist, a teacher and mentor, graphic designer, art director, interior designer and set designer. I have worked in theater and the fine arts, the corporate world and in academia. I ran a design and advertising business for over twenty years and my commercial work included clients in the corporate, non-profit, and small business sectors. I maintain an active studio practice in Deer Isle, Maine, teaching occasional painting and printmaking workshops and mentoring a few earnest and intrepid artists who have found their way to me. For the rare and worthy project, I sometimes return to art direction and graphic design.
I was born in Hartford, CT in 1958. I grew up in New England examining the museum collections in Hartford, Boston and New York City. I studied drawing, painting and printmaking with many gifted artists including John Emile Stevens, Suzanne Howes-Stevens, Dr. Barbara Joan Solomon and Jeremy Foss. During my graduate studies, my mentors included George Creamer, Gerry Bergstein and Alvin Ouellet. I received my BFA and MFA degrees from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, in Boston.
In 2016, I founded Simian Press, a cooperative of artists and writers publishing artist books, literary broadsides and the magazine of poetry and short fiction, LINEA.
Photo Credit: Catarina Coelho