Dirty Goddess
The Body, Time and the Politics of Desire
Susan McDonald’s exhibition, Dirty Goddess, intertwines mythology, personal history, and intimate confession, creating a body of work that is both timeless and deeply personal. The title reflects a powerful duality - an embrace of both the sacred and the raw, the divine and the earthly. McDonald’s work reclaims the image of the goddess, as a fully embodied woman, shaped by her history and desires.
Dirty Goddess III
Acrylic on canvas, 210 x 178 cm
Dirty Goddess VII
Acrylic on canvas, cotton, 208 x 173 cm
Dirty Goddess V
Acrylic on canvas, canvas collage, 230 x 178 cm
Myth, Memory and Residue
These pieces, with their dusty, rubbed surfaces, suggest the residue of touch and time, the remnants of lives lived and loves lost. They echo the themes of her mythological series, reminding us that desire, in all its forms, leaves traces - on our bodies, in our memories, and on the world around us.
Rather than simply reflecting on desire, Dirty Goddess celebrates its persistence, even in the face of societal erasure. By drawing from deeply personal experiences and universal myths, McDonald reclaims the narrative of aging, presenting a vision of womanhood that is unapologetically complex, sensual, and alive.
Mother’s Skirt
Mother’s Skirt XII
Acrylic on cotton, linen, canvas collage
51 x 43.5 cm
These paintings incorporate fragments of her mother’s skirt, a gesture that transforms them into vessels of personal and generational history. Here the body is presented as absence, as memory, as something inherited. McDonald’s mother was distant, her relationship to love and sexuality marked by silence. That silence lingers in these works, where the traces of fabric become more than just material; they are symbols of what was unspoken and what was withheld. By juxtaposing the maternal with the carnal, McDonald creates a dialogue between generations, confronting the legacies of repression that have shaped her understanding of intimacy.
Eve
The narratives we tell about women shape the way we view ourselves, our potential and our place in the world.
How would our culture be different if the first woman had not been branded as ‘second born, first to sin’?
Tell a different story.
Venus and Adonis
Her Venus and Adonis series explores the tension between passion and vulnerability, love and loss. The works unapologetically assert that desire does not fade with time but instead takes on new forms, shaped by memory, resilience, and the weight of experience.
Venus and Adonis I
Framed, oil stick, plaster, acrylic on board
79 x 59 cm
