Portfolio: Series

One of Us

Inspired by the unconventional bodies found in traditional carnival sideshows. The “freaks” in this series have an ambiguous air about them – which of their differences are naturally inherent and which are synthetic in an effort to become more Other? Who is trying to identify as culturally homogeneous and who is claiming their individuality, daring the viewer to measure themselves against it?

Psyche

Exploring the notion of cocooning and radical transformation. In this series, the imagos (adult butterflies) have emerged with sinister alterations. The unsettling human/butterfly hybrids – shown here as specimens collected at various stages of metamorphosis – act as a cautionary narrative, evidence of unholy cross-species unions that have seemingly gone awry vis-a-vis The Fly.

All (The Winner Takes It)

Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?

A substantial community of small, socially critical, textile-based figurative sculptures that explore the slipperiness of identity. Under their playful, doll-like veneer the sculptures critique identity constructs and address themes of homogeneity and consumption in a Western consumer society. Intimate scale and intricate attention to detail invite viewers in close, where unconventional anatomy and dark narratives lurk. 

figurative textile sculpture pheasants Jody MacDonald

Favourite Ways With Pheasant (Monday - Sunday)

Part of the Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up? series, but complex enough to merit it’s own category, Favourite Ways With Pheasant critically assesses how a culture wooed by the eroticization of consumption perverts the experience and construction of identity within ourselves and others.

How To Be A Soldier (detail)

How To Be

In a society that gravitates towards the fast fix, I propose a drive-thru/drive-by remedy for those who require immediate instruction in the act of being: miniature “How To Be” guidance manuals. Each ¾” x 1 ¾” manual comes complete with an “action” figure. A literal take on the term “pocket guide” these wee mentors are illustrative of the desired transformation once the “How To Be…” advice contained in the booklets has been implemented.

Choice Cuts

RYG

Mockup collage sketches intended to be crafted on a grander scale, the R[ed] Y[ellow] G[rey] series combines text and imagery appropriated from product packaging, vintage sewing patterns, copyright free illustrations, and other graphic sources. Populating the pieces are characters who possess obscured facial features, alluding to an anonymity of identity in contemporary culture.

SG-19

Survival Games

Inspired by a grade 7 field trip experience, Survival Games explores the dynamics of social hierarchy through constructs of identity. These works on paper illustrate the shifting and/or equalizing of status between dominant and submissive roles through superficial alterations. Status and social position of characters fluctuate from piece to piece as relationships evolve through layers of artifice, costume, and cunning.

Incomplete Creatures

Incomplete

A series of works-on-paper exploring the various stages of incompleteness. Each 12”x22” sheet of 550gsm rag paper begins with an incomplete narrative involving a variable number of figures, many of which are incomplete in their anatomy. Drawings are incomplete in their construction, varying from complete-as-possible to partially unfinished, waiting to be cut out and assembled.

I Am Your...

I Am Your…

These wee minions were created within a span of four months at the end of 2005. The poetry – or some version of it – was written a couple of years before that. I have spent many weeks debating whether I should post these as they reveal more about me than I probably want the world to know. Truth is, I’ve always been an angry little red-headed girl. WARNING: Extensive use of expletives.

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