THUNDER BAY - Artist and photographer, Meryl McMaster, describes herself as a very shy person, especially when it comes to asking people to sit for portraits. So McMaster decided to turn the camera on herself.
“When I was thinking about what I wanted to focus on, a lot of the ideas that always came to me were very personal ideas,” McMaster said. “So it only really made sense for me to use myself as a subject to tell the story, to tell my story in a sense.”
McMaster’s exhibition, Confluence, is currently on display at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery and she will be giving an artist’s talk on Thursday, May 11 at the gallery to help shine some light on her story as an artist.
“Even though artist talks are hard for me because I get nervous, as an artist I enjoy going to see other artists and talks and get insight into their practices, ideas, and inspirations,” she said. “It’s one thing to see the work in person, but I also have maybe stories or ideas that people may not get from just looking at the work. Sometimes it’s valuable to have the artist to give more background which can open up the work to people in a new way.”
The Ottawa-based artist has had solo shows in galleries across the country and New York City. Confluence is McMaster’s first exhibition in Thunder Bay and it includes works from different time periods in her artistic career, which she said really shows the range of ideas she has had and the progression of her style.
McMaster primarily works with portraits and despite her shyness, she is often the subject, but she said because her photographs often create a dreamlike or otherworldly experience, she is able to distance herself from the work.
“I get into this kind of character, this story line, and then I kind of disguise myself within the photographs,” she said. “I don’t feel the same kind of self-conscious shyness I would taking a family photo or something like that.”
Born and raised in Ottawa, McMaster’s work often explores ideas of identity, including her own background of Plains Cree and Euro-Canadian heritage.
“All my ideas come from a very personal experience, but I do try to speak to the ideas of identity and self in a broader sense,” she said. “So anyone can kind of enter an image without knowing the backstory about why I am doing the work.”
McMaster hopes the audience will almost enter a dream when viewing her exhibition, to allow their mind to wander, and perhaps reflect on their own identity.
“If that leads to them asking questions about who they are and where they come from and have them reflect on their own lives that would be pretty amazing,” she said. “Because that’s what I’m exploring in my photographs, how we come to build who we are and what makes us who we are through our lineage and our history and culture.”
Confluence is on display at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery until June 1. McMaster will giving an artist’s talk at the gallery on Thursday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m.
