Donald Fortescue is an artist, writer, and educator. He writes: “My creative work focuses on the often invisible energies that surround us. I establish processes and constraints around each project to enable natural forces to actively and directly participate in the creation of artworks. These forces might be wind, rain, the actions of living creatures, tidal forces, or the passage of electromagnetic radiation or subatomic particles through the atmosphere, the oceans, or the earth itself. By giving the environment direct agency in my work, I strive to share creative authorship with the ecoscape and bring our attention to the critical role we play in nurturing (and damaging) the natural systems within which we are embedded. This is a spiritual pursuit as well as a material one. I have been a student of Zen Buddhism for many decades and have always adhered to the notion that art practice shares deep parallels with meditation practice. Through both, we connect to our deepest humanity and to the complex web of life around us.”

Fortescue has exhibited his artwork in Australia, the US, Europe, Asia, and South America. He received the Experimental Design Award from San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art in 2001 and his work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Australia, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and other institutions.

Fortescue lives and works in Oakland, California.

donaldfortescue.com