Featured Artist: Janet Macpherson

Visit the Craft Ontario Shop from March 8th to 29th to see our feature of Janet Macpherson`s ceramic creatures!

Janet Macpherson studied ceramics at Sheridan College, and received her MFA at The Ohio State University in 2010. Janet was the 2013 recipient of the Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics, which funded a three-month residency at Zentrum fur Keramik in Berlin, Germany. Her solo exhibition A Canadian Bestiary was mounted by the Gardiner Museum in 2017. Most recently she was included in the exhibition Book of Beasts at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Janet teaches mould-making at Sheridan College, and she currently lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario.

Browse Janet's Online Collection

ARTIST STATEMENT
“Hybrids present us with two things happening simultaneously. They are in flux, one always alluding to and challenging the other. The borders between humans and animals, the manufactured and the natural, the spiritual and the visceral are distinct yet permeable, illustrating differences while creating spaces for wonder and uncertainty. Influenced by my Catholic upbringing, I investigate hybridity within the context of Christian ideology, examining an array of sources from the margins of illuminated manuscripts, lives of saints and martyrs to the depictions of medieval monsters. The work has also been inspired by visits to the Ohio State Agricultural Fair, where farm animals were clothed in protective fabrics, tethered tightly to posts, awaiting exhibition and judging.

Using molds cast from found toy animals, hunting decoys and taxidermy forms, I dismantle and re-compose these objects to subtly reveal a discomforting reality. Animal heads and bodies are interchanged, vegetation grows in peculiar places, and faces are masked and obscured. Wrapping forms in damp porcelain sheets - binding, bandaging the figures, contemplating the intentions of these gestures, I examine the boundaries between devotion and coercion, pleasure and pain, animal impulse and domesticity.”

Janet Poodle, porcelain with gold lustre, $350
Sheep Ram, porcelain with gold lustre, $350

 
Empty-eyed Bear, porcelain, sgraffito, gold lustre, $1800

Three, porcelain with gold lustre, $250

Coyote Decoy, porcelain with gold lustre, $4500
Leaf Man, porcelain with gold lustre, $3500
Egg with legs, porcelain with gold lustre, $150
Sgraffito egg (large), porcelain with gold lustre, $110
Sgraffito egg (small), porcelain with gold lustre, $90

 
Cow and Sheep, porcelain, paper clay, gold lustre $650
Cow and Pig, porcelain, paper clay, gold lustre $650