Em McDonald

Em McDonald is one of the current Resident Artists participating in the City of Mississauga’s Resident Artist Program at the Living Arts Centre.

Em McDonald
Glass

About the artist

“My work is focused on the interaction of the mind and body. I seek to create sculpture that visualises the experience of living in the world, at once the most personal and universal of experiences. My work examines these ideas with a variety of techniques, using glass as my medium to help me tell this narrative through texture and symbolism. I highlight the ability of glass to appear as rock, ceramic, or stone, to reference the body. Being materials of the earth they are a grounding force, opposed by the areas of pure polish and translucency which represent the ethereal spirit of the mind. I interplay these features in my work to begin a conversation about identity, body dysphoria, injury, and experience.

My ‘Androgymals’ series is about my relationship with my own identity as a queer androgynous person. The relationship of the mind and body extends far beyond the pure physicality of living in the world and has drastic impact on how a person can see themselves and others. More recently my work has begun to explore this in my own view of my “otherness” and seeks to visualise it, giving a space and form to the feeling. By taking the classic glass form of the female figure and attaching a visibly male animal head, such as a moose, I create a sculpture that informs a sense of disconnect and strangeness. By forcing this feeling on the viewer I begin a conversation about it and the underlying ideas of identities, bodies, and how we view ourselves.” – Em McDonald

Gallery