1. Description and summary of Object,

“Time’s Gravity” is an artwork of Meryl McMaster which was created in 2015. The material of this piece is archival pigment print on watercolor paper. The photo shows the artist, Meryl McMaster, standing in the snow and holding her annual journals balanced on her arms. The background of the picture shows a landscape of snowy forest. The is symbol represents experiences of meaningful life that occurred annually on each journal. Meryl got the idea of drawing for the spine from the ‘winter count drawings’ which was used by North American indigenous for the calendar of their community’s oral history.

2. Background

The journey of self-discovery featured the starting point of Meryl’s creation. As James Luna and Rebecca Belmore, Meryl engages with the tradition of Indigenous performance art, yet she considers herself as a photography artist. One of the outstanding elements featured in her work include the Sculptures and performance which appear within the images. She utilizes different artistic skills to deliver the right message to her audience. For example, she creates, all of the props consist of sculptural garments. The features within the images enhance the performance and contain substantial context of self- reflection of the main ideas. The works further explore questions of how we build and construct our sense of self-realization. Having thought of self-realization provides an opportunity for the audience to understand her indigenous ancestry.

She collected various images, circle photographs from photographers Edward Curtis and painter George Carline. The paintings date back from the 19th century. The goal of the photographer and the painter was to present the Native American traditional lives. The purpose of the artistic work was to retain indigenous people and culture from fading away with the contemporary culture. Criticism was misrepresenting the indigenous people. They presented them in a way that was differently understood from the mainstream culture. Therefore, they manipulated the images to reflect the livelihood of indigenous people lived. Consequently, stereotypes and misrepresentations of the cultural practices occurred. McMaster thus became interested in looking at the photos with a sense reclaiming the voices of her indigenous ancestors. To accomplish the task, she scanned and painted herself and her father’s body in white, and digitally projected the images onto their bodies. The white face paint acted as a screen for these images without Photoshop. Surreal. The goal of the painting was to allow them to understand them from all sorts of backgrounds as well. Similarly, the view of such depictions and images would initiate the thoughts of ancestors and the stories of their origin.

She liked to record the flash moment in her dream or a memory. She believes people always have a kind of invisible connection of their origin. People were thought to pass such relationships to their descendants. In some way, it is a kind of a process that informs our wandering path. The images lead people to have introspective thoughts of their own.

Her works strongly relate to visitors with no boundary of the country and social background.

3. The relation between artwork and DMG

Doris McCarthy Gallery of the University of Toronto Scarborough has held some original art show such as ‘Unsettling’ by Basil AlZeri, Lori Blondeau, Duorama, Terrance Houle and Lisa Myers on June 22, 2017. DMG has held Meryl McMaster’s ‘Confluence’ in November 2016 as well. The University of Toronto has launched a lot of services for Indigenous students. The aim is to help them develop the social cognition of the Indigenous culture, like Indigenous art, food, and traditions. The practice will continue to encourage and support the creative freedom of Indigenous artists. DMG is willing to offer the opportunity to all kinds of artists to express themselves by art.

4. Academic Mission of Art to University

Indigenous people from 1945 had produced contemporary Indigenous art to date. The elements and themes within Indigenous art portray significance and uniqueness of creativity. Nowadays, people tend to emphasize the development of Indigenous culture and art. Meryl’s work provides an example of such a contemporary yet indigenous art. It draws visitors’ interest to Indigenous art. In this way, more people gain a new understanding of Indigenous art. Furthermore, the art piece could reduce the existing stereotype among people.

Embracing the diversity of art is the key theme in the Doris McCarthy Gallery. Art-related boundaries should be reduced and this can be achieved by holding different kinds of art, giving students and visitors the chance to broaden their horizon. Meryl’s work does not only representing the Indigenous art but also inspiring. The visitor could find the interest in her actions and get a connection with the works. Meryl wants her visitor to think about their self-realization by looking into her arts.

The method used to produce Meryl’s work is different. For example, they are using sculptures and performance in the photograph to create an illusion between the dream and the real world. For visitors who major in art, it is a good inspiration. The skills involved in presenting ideas and feeling can be applied to improve their art skills. It is a good sample for a student who is working on their artworks since the great art could be produced by young artists that has nothing to do with career life. It is encouraging. Also, by looking at Meryl’s technique, artists should notice that any art and any method they use to producing art is encouraged. There is no limitation in art.

5. Importance of this art for the DMG collection

The work provides an excellent chance to broaden DMG’s collection field. It also enhances the diversity of art collections. From all those years, DMG has held art shows of Chinese exhibition, Xu Bing and Gu Xiong: Here Is What I Mean (2004), Afghan presentation, Return by Zalmai (2006), Indian art, Arab art and so on. Meryl’s photography could create an excellent teaching collection. Her work could act as the teaching modules especially for art departments in the University of Toronto Scarborough. It provides knowledge to contemporary and Indigenous art. Therefore, the work could be presented in the upcoming exhibition — A Kind of Return by BisharaElmi and Luther Konadu in May 2019 as a photography exhibition.

 
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