Wendy McDonald

Wendy McDonald lives and works on the flood plains at Thule, on Barapa Barapa country in South West NSW.

Wendy’s work draws from the ecology of the local environment and the ebb and flow of the creeks and rivers in this significant inland delta. Her paintings are an unashamedly feminine interpretation of this ephemeral wetland landscape.

Wendy advocates strongly for water policy which reconnects and rehydrates country in these fragile places.

Wendy’s work has been shown in galleries across NSW and Victoria and is held in many private Australian and international collections. She was included in the 2018 Thames & Hudson publication A Painted Landscape, a survey of Australian landscape painting by Amber Creswell-Bell. McDonald has been a finalist in numerous awards including the NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize (2016, 2017 & 2018), Paddington Art Prize, Calleen Art Prize and the Swan Hill Print & Drawing Acquisitive Prize. In 2022 she was a recipient of the Defiance Gallery, Nock Residency Award, in the Paddington Art Prize for Australian Landscape.

Wendy’s connection to place has found a wider audience through her ongoing collaboration with Australian fashion label Nancybird. First partnering in 2020, the two have continued to build a relationship grounded in a shared love of art and landscape. Two works from Wendy’s 2024 exhibition Stars, Night Herons and the Politics of Envy were translated onto Nancy Bird clothing and accessories, allowing the story of the lagoon environment to travel far beyond the lands of the Thule flood plains.