Angus McDonald (born 1961) is an Australian contemporary

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

, refugee advocate, columnist, and documentary

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

Early life and education

Angus McDonald was born in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

in 1961. He earned an Economics degree at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

, and later (1993–5) studied painting at the

Julian Ashton Art School The Julian Ashton Art School was established by Julian Ashton in 1890 as the "Academy Julian", (perhaps a reference to the Académie Julian in Paris) has been an influential art school in Australia. For a long time it was known as the Sydney Art ...

. He travelled to the small island of

Leros Leros (), also called Lero (from the Italian language), is a Greek island and municipality in the Dodecanese in the southern Aegean Sea. It lies from Athens's port of Piraeus, from which it can be reached by a nine-hour ferry ride or by a 45-min ...

, Greece and lived and painted there from 1996 to 1999. In 2000, he was accepted as a student at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts in Italy. Upon his return to Australia in 2001, he settled in the

Lennox Head Lennox Head is a seaside village in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, situated on the stretch of coast between Byron Bay and Ballina in Ballina Shire local government area. It had a population of 7,741 in the 2016 Austra ...

region in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. In 2003, he settled in Lennox Head itself.

Art

McDonald was a visual artist, mainly a painter (although he didn't use a paintbrush until he was 31), for around 25 years before he started making films, from around 2017. His works have been avidly collected and exhibited internationally, including a 2007 London exhibition which showed his work after painting an

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

expedition with the Mawson's Huts expedition. He returned to Antarctica in 2008 and 2009 as an

artist in residence Artist-in-residence (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...

for Aurora Expeditions. He is renowned for his

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

and

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

paintings.

Archibald Prize finalist

McDonald's portraits have been finalists for the

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

art competition seven times. *In 2009, McDonald painted artist Zoe MacDonell *In 2011, he painted Ann Lewis *In 2012, McDonald entered a portrait of artist Tim Maguire *In 2015, a portrait by McDonald of singer Abbe May was a finalist *In 2019, he painted lawyer, writer, and former refugee Mariam Veiszadeh *In 2020, McDonald's portrait of

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

Iranian writer and journalist and former Manus refugee,

Behrouz Boochani Behrouz Boochani (; born 23 July 1983) is a Iranian Kurdistan, Kurdish-Iranian journalist, human rights defender, writer and film producer living in New Zealand. He was held in the Australian-run Manus Regional Processing Centre, Manus Island d ...

, was selected for the People's Choice Award *In 2024, he painted

Marcia Langton Marcia Lynne Langton (born 31 October 1951) is an Aboriginal Australian writer and academic. she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Langton is an acti ...

Film and social advocacy

In 2016, McDonald became interested in

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

and

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

issues after travelling across the

Greek islands Greece has many islands, with estimates ranging from somewhere around 1,200 to 6,000, depending on the minimum size to take into account. The number of inhabited islands is variously cited as between 166 and 227. The largest Greek island by ...

(including Leros, where he had lived a couple of decades earlier) to see how the local communities dealt with the huge numbers of

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A per ...

s who had arrived in 2015 and 2016 via the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

, mainly from

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

via

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. He was struck by the more humane way that the Greeks treated these huge numbers of migrants, compared with the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government or simply as the federal government, is the national executive government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The executive consists of the pr ...

's treatment of the relatively few who had arrived by boat in Australian territorial waters. McDonald established a social justice project called Howling Eagle, which advocates for humane treatment and raises public awareness of asylum seekers. The project began releasing videos on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

in 2018 under the title "Philoxenia", which is Greek for "extending hospitality and friendship to the stranger". McDonald was ambassador for World Vision's ''KidsOffNauru Campaign'' and is on the Sydney Committee for

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

Australia and Asia.

''Manus''

In 2019, McDonald's 13-minute short film ''Manus'' was released. It details the stand-off between the

s in the

Manus Island detention centre The Manus Regional Processing Centre, or Manus Island Regional Processing Centre (MIRCP), was one of a number of offshore Australian immigration detention facilities. The centre was located on the PNG Navy Base Lombrum (previously a Royal Aus ...

and the authorities, which occurred at the end of 2017 around the time the detention facility was closed. In total, asylum seekers were held in the Manus Island detention centre for six years. The film was shot by Australian journalist Olivia Rousset and uses only clips from interviews with the men to create the narrative. It includes a poem called "Manus Poem" written and narrated in

Farsi Persian ( ), also known by its endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoke ...

, a prominent Kurdish Iranian former asylum seeker held on

Manus Island Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth-largest island in Papua New Guinea, with an area of , measuring around . Manus Island is covered in rugged jungles w ...

. ''Manus'' was awarded Best Documentary at the 2019 St. Kilda Film Festival and Best Documentary at the 2020 FIFO (Festival International du Film Documentaire Océanien) in

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

. It was an official selection for the 2020

Byron Bay International Film Festival The Byron Bay Film Festival (BBFF) is a popular AACTA Awards accredited independent awards-based film event held in the late Australian summer at the Palace Cinemas, in the coastal town of Byron BayBrunswick Picture Housein Brunswick Heads and ...

and the 2020

Aesthetica Short Film Festival The Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) is an international film festival which takes place annually in York, England, at the beginning of November. Founded in 2011, it is a celebration of independent film from around the world, and an outle ...

(ASFFest) in

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

, England, qualifying the film for entry into the 2020 Oscars Documentary Short category by the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...

Writing

In 2020, McDonald began writing a weekly social commentary column for the ''Northern Rivers Review''.

References

External links

* * Includes details of ''Manus''. {{DEFAULTSORT:McDonald, Angus 21st-century Australian artists Australian documentary filmmakers 1961 births Artists from Sydney Living people University of Sydney alumni