"I am not depicting truth in my paintings, nor am I simply inventing. Instead, I explore an interweaving of reality and fiction similar to what is constructed during recollection of dreams and distant memories. I paint simultaneously from two angles; the concrete and the intuitive. I work from old photographs while frequently placing unanchored marks in response to compositional need or, perhaps more frequently, whim. As, the canvas fills out I spend more and more energy bringing these elements together. Risk becomes paramount in my process near the completion of each work. In nearly every piece, meticulously painted representational elements and poetic abstraction must be destroyed in order to bring harmony and strength to the composition as a whole. What is left is a dripping dream reality where people become the most solid and tangible element, where the abstract mark is equally critical and as aerial as its counterpart is grounded, and where that which is unimportant slips away."

Elizabeth McDonald is a young artist frequently addressing questions of constructed memory and dream in her paintings. She primarily works in oil and watercolor, drawing upon her own whim to create fictions that are mercurial both in terms of imagery and narrative. Her compositions are bold and clear, yet no thing is completely solid and no singular narrative is apparent. The facts of each story are cloudy yet the emotional response to the imagery is sharply vivid, leaving the viewer no choice but to wonder, to construct new stories, to daydream.

Ms. McDonald was born and raised in Plano, Texas and earned her BFA from the University of North Texas. She has recently been shortlisted in the 2009 London International Creative Competition for her oil paintings "Psychic Healing for Alligators" and "My Mother Killed Squirrels When I Was Young." Images of these works can be seen in the LICC awards publication released early 2010.