Jillian McDonald, "Hole: Deep State," 2020
pencil crayon on paper, 22" X 30"
Jillian McDonald was raised in Manitoba but now lives in Brooklyn, where she makes videos, performances, drawings and web-based works inspired by popular film genres like horror and romance. Her most recent work features remote northern landscapes that appear haunted by paranormal events.
Before COVID-19 hit, I had planned to spend the spring filming people flying kites and falling down hills in Newfoundland and on Governor's Island in New York. But I'm on Day 42 of complete isolation in my Brooklyn apartment, at the centre of the crisis.
I hear endless sirens, have a chronic sore throat and am appreciating the stillness as much as possible. Eight hundred people a day have been dying here. I'm grateful for health, a home studio and a yard with cardinals, earthworms and squirrels.
Residencies are postponed and an exhibition I curated is too. I've stopped reading news obsessively and cannot listen to the president's briefings. Instead, I'm listening to podcasts, participating in Zoom studio visits and drawing holes.
I was sick for four weeks starting in late January and may have had the virus – fever, chills, coughing, respiratory distress, fatigue. I hardly left my bed for 14 days.
I've always been scared of holes – falling into them, putting my arm into them, getting stuck in them. I grew up in Manitoba and often imagined I would one day fall through the ice with the snowmobilers and skaters.
Drawing is hard. It doesn't come easily. I can't undo or reshoot, but it is also soothing and solitary, unlike my video-making.■
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