Jo McDonald is an Edinburgh-based artist and educator whose practice revolves around storytelling, history and the sharing of experience. Her innovative work reimagines traditional tapestry weaving techniques by substituting conventional materials with paper derived from second-hand books and printed matter – materials chosen specifically for their embedded histories and traces of human interaction.
McDonald is drawn to the physical evidence of previous ownership found within used books – fingerprints, handwritten dedications and margin notes – viewing these elements as portals into these objects’ earlier lives. Her meticulous process involves selecting books not only for their written content but also for their subtle tonal variations, which she blends with the precision of a painter mixing a palette—from the deep browns of antique volumes to the crisp whites of textbooks.
For Hidden Door’s 2025 Festival McDonald presents Archive, an installation that poetically interprets the concept of library shelves. The work comprises paper cut into one-centimetre squares, threaded onto monofilament wire and coiled around varying sizes of reels arranged in two horizontal rows. These reels represent collections of stories intertwined through time; interconnected narratives that exist both individually and as components of a larger cultural tapestry. From these shelf-like structures, the threaded paper trails onto the floor, physically manifesting the way stories flow beyond their containment.
McDonald’s career includes being shortlisted for The Cordis Trust Prize for Tapestry (2021 & 2015), receiving two Hope Scott Trust Awards, and winning the Milly and Benno Schotz Award for best work by a young sculptor at the Royal Glasgow Institute in 2012.
Find out more at jomcdonald.co.uk
