Donna Marcus is an Australian artist best known for her use of vast collections of discarded aluminium kitchenware in her practice. Constructed from discarded kitchen utensils – plastic and aluminium teapots, lids, jelly moulds, steamers, colanders, egg poachers and bottle tops – her sculptures draw viewers into a world of kitchens both remembered and imagined. Marcus is engaged by the stories evoked by these objects, and by the familiarity they engender in many viewers. Their original uses are recalled and extended by the process of assemblage, as they are combined into the repetitive forms of modernist grids and spheres. The materials themselves generate another layer of reference, and further extend the modernist impulse to regularity, repetition, and dream.
Marcus has exhibited extensively both within Australia and internationally, appearing in major sculpture survey and award exhibitions at institutions such as the Museum of Art and Design, New York, the National Gallery of Australia and the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections, nationally and internationally, and has been the subject of several scholarly and journalistic publications.
Some of Marcus’ large-scale public artworks include: Stride, Kambala School, Sydney (2023), Mooring, Kangaroo Bay, Hobart (2022), Poise and Grace, Xiamen, China (2019), Plant, Gasworks, Brisbane (2018), Vapour, Zhengzhou, China (2016), Sponge, Station Square Joondalup Western Australia (2016), Propel, Gladstone Airport Queensland (2015), and Trickle, 400 George St Brisbane (2009).
Selected solo exhibitions include: Donna Marcus: Radiate, Home of the Arts (HOTA), Gold Coast, QLD, (2023-24), Hearth, Schoolhouse Gallery, Clarence Arts Centre, Hobart, TAS, (2022), Attic, Andrew Baker Art Gallery, Brisbane, QLD (2021), Gold Silver and Rough Diamonds, Andrew Baker Art Dealer, Brisbane, QLD (2019). Marcus has also been included in numerous group exhibitions, with recent inclusions in: The North Sydney Art Prize (2022), Sculptures by the Sea, Bondi (2022), and HOTA Collects, HOTA, QLD (2021).
