Janet MacPherson
Janet Macpherson is an artist based in Hamilton, ON. She studied ceramics at Sheridan College and received her MFA in Ceramics from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
This work takes a curious approach, creating moulds from foam taxidermy heads and later casting them in porcelain, carving into the surfaces using a sgraffito technique that scrapes back the black glaze to reveal the white of the porcelain beneath. The animal heads – bears, rabbits and deer – are made to mimic hunting trophy heads, the forms covered in images and floral embellishments that take the place of traditional fur. The carved surface acts like a skin for the animal form, adhering to the contours of the features, while simultaneously obscuring them.
Macpherson casts plastic toys and decoys, reconfiguring their parts and creating hybrid forms that are inspired by the margins of illuminated manuscripts and medieval monsters, and by trips to agricultural fairs where animals are clothed in protective fabrics. The manipulation of animal forms allows an examination of the boundaries between nature and the built environment, pleasure and pain, and wildness and domesticity.
Macpherson’s work can be found in the permanent collection at The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto, the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Burlington, and in the private collection of Aaron Milrad, a prominent Toronto ceramic collector.
Janet Macpherson is an artist based in Hamilton, ON. She studied ceramics at Sheridan College and received her MFA in Ceramics from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
This work takes a curious approach, creating moulds from foam taxidermy heads and later casting them in porcelain, carving into the surfaces using a sgraffito technique that scrapes back the black glaze to reveal the white of the porcelain beneath. The animal heads – bears, rabbits and deer – are made to mimic hunting trophy heads, the forms covered in images and floral embellishments that take the place of traditional fur. The carved surface acts like a skin for the animal form, adhering to the contours of the features, while simultaneously obscuring them.
Macpherson casts plastic toys and decoys, reconfiguring their parts and creating hybrid forms that are inspired by the margins of illuminated manuscripts and medieval monsters, and by trips to agricultural fairs where animals are clothed in protective fabrics. The manipulation of animal forms allows an examination of the boundaries between nature and the built environment, pleasure and pain, and wildness and domesticity.
Macpherson’s work can be found in the permanent collection at The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto, the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Burlington, and in the private collection of Aaron Milrad, a prominent Toronto ceramic collector.
