Witness: Histories of Conflict in the War Art of Bill MacDonnell
Founders' Gallery, Calgary, AB - To Feb 17, 2025
Confronting global conflict is a daunting yet essential challenge for human progress. In Witness: Histories of Conflict in the War Art of Bill MacDonnell, curator Dick Averns sets the tone for engaging with MacDonnell’s paintings not as romanticized landscapes, but as stark representations of violence and civil collapse.
Over his distinguished career, MacDonnell has travelled to regions of conflict, including Vietnam, Congo-Kinshasa, Rwanda, Western Europe and the Balkans, accompanying Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment. He was later deployed to Afghanistan as an official Canadian war artist during the War on Terror. These experiences solidified his engagement with the global impacts of war and shaped the philosophical and metaphorical complexity of his paintings.
MacDonnell’s work is powerful in its quiet, contemplative approach. His large-scale canvases revisit historically significant sites of war. Acting as witness and war artist, he brings a critical gaze to landscapes marked by turmoil. His poetic and measured approach adds subtle tension to the visual field, disrupting romanticized views of the landscapes and inviting deeper scrutiny and reflection.
One notable example is Soviet Tank Graveyard, Camp Alamo, Afghanistan c. 2008, where an acrid pink sky hangs over a vast area littered with rusty tanks. Framed as grim war remnants, the tanks are haunting testaments to the folly of empire-building. A large white X punctuates the scene, both as a warning and as a jarring reminder of the scars left behind from war and conflict.
Averns brings together a selection of MacDonnell’s paintings that navigate wide-ranging geographies and combat zones. Curated to appeal to a broad range of people, these monumental works create an unsettling tension between the visible and the concealed, forcing viewers to reckon with the aftermath of conflict and loss.
Running parallel is the anniversary group exhibition Far from Home: Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry 110 Years of Art, which is curated by retired lieutenant-colonel Bill Bewick and honours the soldiers of PPCLI through more than a century of service.
