This work is part of the "Second Self" series.

“My interest in the complexities of identity led me to work on a project exploring the identities of others. "Second Self" reconsiders portraiture by incorporating drawing and sculpture to evoke a world not normally seen by the naked eye. The thematic ideas of identity and masking led me to the concept of 'persona'. We invent personas – or social masks – through clothing, hairstyles and posture, for example, and they have come to define the individual for the public while concealing the real person.

I began to explore the use of social masks by asking friends not technically trained in drawing to create blind-contour portraits of themselves. I felt this process started to portray that true self, as their facial features are reconfigured in strange ways that are telling of the subjects' self-concept or betray the distortions of self-perception. Using wire, I created sculptures that were exact representations of these drawings. Next, I suspended the sculptures in front of my subjects' faces. The sculptures became masks – or personas – that subtly concealed and changed the subjects' perceived identities. I also painted their faces white to represent this protective social mask or persona we wear, either real or metaphorical. The sculptures are humorous and unsettling, with their gaze and white face paint it presents them in a way that is abnormal and that can appear confrontational and challenging while at the same time lighthearted and playful.” – MM

Meryl McMaster works and live in Chelsea (Qc). She holds a BFA from OCAD University (2010). Her awards include the Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award, REVEAL Indigenous Art Award, Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists, Canon Canada Prize, and OCAD U Medal. Her work has been shown at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian, Washington. Meryl McMaster represented Canada in New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 Triennal at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington. Remai Modern and McMichael Canadian Art Collection have produced and are currently touring "Meryl McMaster: Bloodline", a survey exhibition of Meryl McMaster, whose groundbreaking large-scale photographic works reflect her mixed Plains Cree/Métis, Dutch and British ancestry.