On 06 January, 2018, PLATFORM welcomed New York artist Jillian McDonald who gave an insightful talk in the gallery, in conjunction with her solo exhibition "Something Wicked (This Way Comes)". The exhibition ran from 05 January – 17 February 2018.
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The exhibition presented five videos shot in Scotland that suggest paranormal events and an unspecified horror.
Inspired by the growing horror film sub-genre that allegedly includes found footage, The Hatch is a two channel video filmed in Northeast Scotland and starring a real-life “bunker buster”, a recreational Cold War enthusiast who travels the Scottish countryside tracking, breaking into, and exploring scores of identical abandoned bunkers. A series of bunkers are under siege.
Four additional videos share a suspended tension familiar from horror films. This work represents a new direction in McDonalds’s work. Festival flags, strung from a stone clock tower flutter in the wind, a line of fog creeps across wintry landscapes, crows cry out and congregate at dusk, the rooms of an abandoned house seem to breathe in the breeze. In these videos, there are no human characters, plot, or other typical storytelling elements. In these nearly still scenes, slight movements become remarkable and strange. The images pay homage to traditions of landscape painting and photography.
platformgallery.org/exhibition/something-wicked-this-way-comes/
