Fiona MacDonald is known for her installations of bodies of work that draw on local cultural traditions, social and natural history. Neglected archives and personal collections, decorative arts and crafts such as weaving, collage, wallpaper and graphic arts are often source for her work. Her installations take the form of ‘conversations’ about undercurrents in social processes of inclusion and exclusion.

Her work has been seen in major contemporary exhibitions such as the Biennale of Sydney, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art and Australian Perspecta. She has exhibited in Tokyo, Paris, London, Washington DC and New York. She participated in the opening exhibition of the Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia. Fiona is currently working on Obsolete (working title), a meditation on post-industrial futures from the perspective of Kandos, a small regional town in regional NSW.

Selected exhibitions and projects include Future Feminist Archive Report, Cross Art Projects, Sydney, 2016; Cementa15, Kandos (2015); Elastic / Borracha Mobile Residency: Darwin <> Sydney <> Dili, Chan Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin and The Cross Art Projects, Sydney(2014); Bimblebox-Art-Science-Nature, touring (2014-2016); Ghost Citizens: Witnessing the Intervention (2013); Feminage: the Logic of Feminist Collage (2014); Green Bans Art Walk and Exhibitions, Cross Art Projects, Sydney (2011); Local Studies: Legend and Legacy, Wollongong City Gallery (2010); Local Studies: A View from Central Queensland Archives, Artspace Mackay, Mackay (2009); Lobby, Fold, Spin a suite of three exhibitions in New York at Pace University and Daneyal Mahmood Gallery, Chelsea, NY (2007) created in collaboration with Ricky Subritzky; Dream Home, Gfineart, Washington DC, USA (2006); Strangely Familiar, UTS Gallery, University of Technology, Sydney (2005), One Square Mile, Museum of Brisbane, City Hall Brisbane (2003); The Australia Projects: Federation Festival, RMIT Gallery Melbourne (2001); Photography is Dead Long Live Photography, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (1996); Seven Histories of Australia, Australian Centre of Contemporary Art, Melbourne; The Aberrant Object: Women and Surrealism, Museum of Modern Art at Heide (1994) Second Nature P3 Art Tokyo, Japan (1991) and A First Look: Philip Morris 83-86, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (1986)

Independent publications include: Local Studies, (Artspace Mackay, 2009); Universally Respected (University of Central Queensland, 1993); Honeymoon (Mitchell Library, SLNSW 1992); Cyclopaedia (Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney 1990). Her work also features in group exhibition catalogues such as http://www.bimbleboxexhibition.com/assets/bimblebox_catalogue_rgb.pdf

Public Art Projects include Palimpsest, Customs House Sydney Public Art Project for the City of Sydney 1998; Time Walk, Campbell Parade, Bondi, Waverley Council (1999-2001); Millennium Tympanum, Sydney International Airport, Sydney (2000). Her concept for the Sea of Hands (1996) developed by AAAR! (Australian Artists Against Racism!) for ANTaR (Australian for Native Title and Reconciliation) has proved to be a powerful tool for Australian Reconciliation.

Her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of New Zealand, National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of South Australia, the Museum of Applied Arts and Science, Sydney as well as regional, university and state library collections and private collections in Australia, Paris, London, Chicago, New York and Washington DC.

Fiona MacDonald was born in Rockhampton QLD and lives and works in Ilford, NSW.
She is represented by the Cross Art Projects, Sydney.