Meryl McMaster

Fellowship Artist

Fellowship: Red (2013)

Cultural Affiliation: Plains Cree/Blackfoot

Based in Ottawa, Canada, McMaster graduated from Toronto’s OCAD with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography in 2010. In 2012, she was the recipient of the Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists from Ottawa’s Hnatyshyn Foundation; in 2013, a Creation and Production Grant for Emerging Artists from the city of Ottawa; and in 2015, a Visual Artists: Emerging Grant from the Ontario Arts Council. Additionally, she was placed on the long list of nominees for the 2016 Sobey Art Award. Although McMaster’s main medium is photography, specifically, digital chromogenic prints, she also creates costumes and props that she performs in her pieces, which are usually self-portraits. Her overall photographic theme is exploratory, accentuating the processes by which one creates one’s identity and how heritage and the environment contribute to these processes.