DIRK McDONNELL has been photographing since the mid-80s when with his 35mm camera, he travelled extensively through Mexico. His “historiographic photographs have clarity, emotional depth and edge”, wrote Philip Isaacson in the Maine Sunday Telegram. McDonnell has since traveled to photograph life in a number of disparate places, including Turkey, Holland, England, Italy, France, Ireland, and China. He also concentrated on photographing the Maine landscape in winter, usually working with a large format camera which enables him to manipulate the image while shooting. He is also represented by Robert Klein Gallery in Boston. More recently, McDonnell has photographed in Argentina, Death Valley and the Isle of Skye. He is now working with digital media. He is in the permanent collection of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, ME, The Georgia O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe, NM, the Portland Museum of Art, Bravo Center, Oaxaca, Mexico, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL, Colby College Art Museum, The Norma Marin Collection at Smith Wellesley, the University of Maine, Machias, ME, the Bruce Brown Collection at the Portland Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art. McDonnell has shown at Colby College in Waterville, the University of New England at Westbrook College, the University of Maine at Machias, at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, formerly in Rockport, ME and at 162 Gallery, Rockport ME. McDonnell’s work can also be seen at www.dirkmcdonnell.net
