Meryl McMaster

Meryl McMaster (born 1988, Ottawa[1]) is a Canadian and Plains Cree photographer whose best-known work explores her Indigenous heritage. McMaster frequently practices self-portraiture to explore themes of representation and identity, and incorporates elements of sculpture and costume design in her work[2][3] as well as elements of performance and installation.[1]

Meryl McMaster
Born1988 (age 31–32)
NationalityCanadian, Siksika Nation
Alma materOntario College of Art and Design University
Known forPhoto-based work
Notable work
Time's Gravity, 2015
Websitewww.merylmcmaster.com

Work

In her work, McMaster explores "tensions surrounding understanding one's personal identity and heritage, especially her own as a woman of Indigenous (Plains Cree) and European (British/Dutch) descent".[1] She adopts a performative approach in which she blurs the boundaries between performance, sculpture, and photography by incorporating elaborate costumes and props in order to create staged images.[1] McMaster considers these elements to be tools of personal transformation that become extensions of her body.[1][4] McMaster's first major series, Ancestral from 2008, "appropriates ethnographic portraits, which she then projects onto her photographic subjects: herself and her father,"[5] noted artist and curator Gerald McMaster.

She makes use of such elaborate props in works such as Winged Callings (animal costumes) or Aphoristic Currents (collar "fashioned out of hundreds of twisted newspapers") in order to examine the tensions between cultural and personal memory as well as how they interact with imagination.[1][6] Both works are part of her In-Between Worlds series (2010-2013).[1] With regards to her artistic practice, McMaster states: "I'm really interested in exploring questions of our sense of self and how we really come to construct that sense of self through land and lineage, history and culture".[7]

Awards

McMaster studied photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, graduating in 2010.[1] The same year, she won the Canon Canada Prize[1], the Ontario College of Art and Design Medal in Photography[1] as well as the Spoke Club Membership Prize[1] and the Vistek Photography Award[1]. In 2013 she was a recipient of the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship[1] [8] and, in 2016, she was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award.[1][9] In 2017, she was awarded the REVEAL Indigenous Art Award[1][10]. In 2018, she was one of the three winners of the Scotia Bank New Generation Photography Award[1] Other distinctions she received include the Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists[11], and the Doris McCarthy Scholarship. In March 2018, she was named one of three inaugural winners of the New Generation Photography Award, which supports the careers of young artists working in lens-based media.[12]

Exhibitions

McMaster's first solo exhibition, In-Between Worlds, opened at Project Space, Harbourfront Centre, in 2010 before traveling to the Station Gallery, the Peterborough Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Hamilton's Design Annex, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts until 2017.[1] A survey of her work was organized by the Carleton University Art Gallery (CUAG) and curated by Heather Anderson.[1][13][14] The exhibition was on view at CUAG from May 2 - August 28, 2016 and subsequently travelled to other venues including the Doris McCarthy Gallery[1], the Richmond Art Gallery (RAG)[1], the Thunder Bay Art Gallery[1], the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba[1], the Lethbridge University Art Gallery, and The Rooms.[15] Her work was prominently featured in Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood at the Art Gallery of Ontario during the summer of 2017.[16]

Group Exhibitions
  • Native Portraiture: Power and Perception, Tacoma Art Museum, February 10, 2018- February 10, 2019
  • Niigaanikwewag, Art Gallery of Mississauga, February 22 - April 15, 2018
  • Recover All That Is Ours, Campbell River Art Gallery, March 1 - April 25, 2018
  • ÀDISÒKÀMAGAN/NOUS CONNAÎTRE UN PEU NOUS-MÊMES/ WE’LL ALL BECOME STORIES, Ottawa Art Gallery, April 28 - September 16, 2018
  • Embodiment, Museum London, December 23, 2017 - April 1, 2018
  • New Generation Photography Award Exhibition, National Gallery of Canada and Onsite Gallery, 2018[1]
  • Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood, Art Gallery of Ontario, summer 2017[1]
  • The Sublunary World, Baldwin Gallery, 2017[1]
  • My Spirit Is Strong, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Art Gallery, 2016[1]
  • Back Where They Came From, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art, 2016[1]
  • Fifth World, Mendel Art Gallery, 2015[1]
  • Identity (Material Self: Performing the Other Within), MOCCA Toronto, part of CONTACT Photography Festival, 2014
  • In the Flesh, Ottawa Art Gallery, 2013[1]
  • 1812-2012: A Contemporary Perspective, Harbourfront Centre, 2012[1]

Solo Exhibitions
  • Confluence, University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, January 18 - March 15, 2018 [touring exhibition] [17]
  • In Between Worlds, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, September 8 - December 3, 2017 [touring exhibition]
  • The Fifth World, Mendel Art Gallery, April 3 - June 7, 2015
  • Second Self, Latcham Gallery, 2011

Collections

McMaster's work has been acquired by various public collections within Canada and the United States, including the Canadian Museum of History, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Eiteljorg Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria[1] as well as by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.

Further reading
  • Walker, Ellyn, The Fifth World, RACAR: revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review Vol. 42, No. 2, Continuities Between Eras Indigenous Art Histories / Continuité entre les époques Histoires des arts autochtones (2017), pp. 124–126.
  • Jurjans, Katrina, "ʻMaterial Self: Performing the Other Withinʼ Speaks of the Liminal Space Between Physical, Mental, and Cultural States", Opus Magazine
  • Meryl McMaster: Confluence, exhibition catalogue with essays by Heather Anderson, Gabrielle Moser, and cheyanne turions, (Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery, 2016) ISBN 0770905951, 9780770905958
  • Every. Now. Then. Reframing Nationhood, exhibition catalogue edited by Andrew Hunter, Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017. ISBN 9781894243957
  • Manon Gaudet, "Crossovers: Meryl McMaster", Border Crossings, 141, vol. 36, no. 1 (March 2017).

aRberg, "And the firsteferences
  1. Jasmine Inglis, Acquisition Proposal for Meryl McMaster's Edge of a Moment, accession #48508, Curatorial File, National Gallery of Canada.
  2. "Meryl McMaster exhibition confronts history of Indigenous representation". Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  3. Gismondi, Chris J. "Meryl McMaster". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  4. Manon Gaudet, "Crossovers: Meryl McMaster", Border Crossings, 141, vol. 136 no.1 (March 2017): 91.
  5. Walker, Ellyn (2015). "Representing the Self through Ancestry: Meryl McMaster's Ancestral Portraits".
  6. Manon Gaudet, "Crossovers: Meryl McMaster", Border Crossings, 141, vol. 36 no. 1 (March 2017): 91.
  7. Lynn Saxberg, "And the first New Generation Photography awards go to...", Ottawa Citizen (March 2018).
  8. "Meet the Fellows | Meryl McMaster (Part IV of V)". Eiteljorg. 2013-10-30. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  9. ""Ottawa Visual Artist McMaster on Long List for $50,000 Art Prize"". Ottawa Citizen. April 14, 2016.
  10. S, Leah; als. "Three Artists Win New Generation Photography Award". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  11. "Meryl McMaster, Jordan Bennett & Philip Gray Win Inaugural Pachter Prizes". Canadian Art. Retrieved 2019-03-14.
  12. "New Generation Photography Award | Scotiabank". www.scotiabank.com. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  13. Anderson, Heather; Moser, Gabrielle; turions, cheyanne (2016). Meryl McMaster: Confluence. Carleton University Art Gallery. ISBN 9780770905958.
  14. "Carleton University Art Gallery". www.cuag.ca. Retrieved 2018-03-24.
  15. Carleton University Art Gallery (2016). Meryl McMaster: Confluence. Ottawa: Carleton University Art Gallery. ISBN 9780770905958.
  16. Hunter, Andrew (2017). Every.Now.Then: Reframing Nationhood. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario. ISBN 9781894243957.
  17. Gallery, University of Lethbridge Art. "Meryl McMaster: Confluence January 18 – March 22, 2018Main Gallery, Level 6, Centre for the Arts – University of Lethbridge Art Gallery". Retrieved 2019-03-14.
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