HAMILTON, CANADA

JANET MACPHERSON

Leaf Man Box

$1,305.00
Exhibition Submission Statement

I have always used the ceramic vessel as a canvas for images mined from my Catholic upbringing, childhood memories, religious iconography, and plants and animals. As the imagery is carved onto the surface, a nascent story begins to emerge. I combine the visual elements intuitively and leave most of the narrative contemplation to outside interpretations. 

Medieval reliquaries that are said to hold relics of saints, are often formed in the same shape as the body part housed inside. Strangely they do not allow a glimpse of bone or tooth or hair, and instead the corporeal object is concealed by cloth or thick layers of glass. We must rely on the outside to tell us what is inside; the surface obscures and reveals simultaneously the contents that dwell within. 

I have used this lidded box form to create funerary urns for the deceased relatives of friends and family. This work has been challenging, moving and an honour to undertake.  Guided by families, I design visual collages to celebrate each person's life and memories. My aim is to offer comfort and insight, forming a connection between life and death. Though the urns' contents are private, their exterior tells a partial story – the story of a complex human life, both revealed and concealed.

Dimensions: 11.5"H x 6"W x 6"D

Material: Slip-cast porcelain, black underglaze, gold lustre

Artwork ships: beginning october 22nd

Leaf Man Box

Janet Macpherson, 2025
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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, which despite its ubiquitous use of the temporal body in all its messiness, tends to prioritize spiritual purity over the concerns of earthly existence.  

My complicated history with Catholicism has been a driving influence in the work I have made throughout my career, and I continue to investigate its impact in my most recent body of work. Christianity is boldly anthropocentric in its doctrine. Situating humans as the most important element of the universe has created a hierarchical structure that has prevailed across millennia. However, growing up Catholic carries an inherent shame for having a body, and for giving in to its base desires.  Embedded in this ethos is the assertion that humans are separate from, and have dominion over other life forms, while the prioritization of spiritual purity rejects the basic reality that we are in fact animals and part of an interdependent ecosystem. Catholic iconography shows the martyred body as grotesquely broken, yet the facial expressions always convey a serene indifference to the pain being inflicted, as if to negate the very notion of the physical body. The superiority of the spirit is constantly reinforced this way despite the corporeal nature of its visual culture. I am compelled to reference this paradoxical relationship, and the way it shapes my experience of the world.

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About the Artist

Janet Macpherson studied ceramics at Sheridan College and received her MFA at The Ohio State University in 2010. In 2012 she was granted an artist-in-residence position in the Craft Studios at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. 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. She has also received several research and creation grants from the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Janet has exhibited her work extensively within Canada and the United States, most notably in the solo exhibition Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary, which was mounted by the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto in 2017. Janet’s work was included in the exhibition Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and in the Biennale Nationale de Sculpture Contemporaine, in Trois Riviere, QC. Janet teaches mould-making in the ceramics department at Sheridan College, and she currently lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario.

Artist cv

JANET MACPHERSON

Education

2010         MFA Ceramics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

2002 The School of Crafts and Design, Ceramics, Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario

1997 BA Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Ontario


Solo Exhibitions

Oct. 2025           I Saw All the Eyes Seeing, The Lyceum Gallery, Toronto, ON

2022 Escarpment, Public Mural, The Keddy Access Trail, Hamilton, ON

2021           Hybrid Land, Mary E. Black Gallery, Halifax, NS

2018         Tethered, Slate Fine Art Gallery, Regina, SK

2017         Bestiary, Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse, YT

2017         Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary, The Gardiner Museum, Toronto, ON

2015             Mirabilia, VERSO Gallery, Toronto, ON

2014         Processional, The Sculpture Centre, Cleveland, OH 


Selected Group Exhibitions

2025             What Holds, Vessels and Sticks Gallery, Toronto, ON

                      Art Gallery of Hamilton Annual Art Sale, AGH, Hamilton, ON

2024         Art Gallery of Hamilton Annual Art Sale, AGH, Hamilton, ON

2023         Familiar, curated by Gina Fafard, Slate Fine Art Gallery, Regina, SK

2020              Biennale national de sculpture contemporaine, Trois Riviere, QC

2019 Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World, J. Paul Getty Museum, 

Los Angeles, CA

This Land Like a Mirror Turns You Inward, collaboration with Magdolene Dykstra,

        Truckstop Gallery, Minneapolis, MN

Terrestrial Beings, Esplanade Art Gallery, Medicine Hat, AB

2018 NCECA Emerging Artists Exhibition, Pittsburgh, PA

2017 2017 Canadian Craft Biennial, Art Gallery of Burlington, Burlington, ON

2016 The Second Virginia McClure Ceramics Biennale, curated by Linda Swanson, 

Galerie McClure, Montreal, QC

2015 Stopping by Woods, curated by Patrick Macaulay, Bill Boyle Artport, Toronto, ON

                    NCECA Biennial, David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, RI

                     TBA, curated by Rebecca Harvey, Pawtucket Armory, Providence, RI

2014 Gather, collaboration with Lindsay Montgomery, Craft Ontario, Toronto, ON

                      Show Off, Craft Corridor Vitrines, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, ON

2013 Animal Stories, curated by Karine Tsoumis, Gardiner Museum, Toronto, ON

Monster(osities), Practice Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2012         RBC Emerging Artist People’s Choice Award, Gardiner Museum, Toronto, ON

                                      Small Favors, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA

LOOKout, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, ON

2011         After the Pedestal, The Sculpture Centre, Cleveland, OH

For The Person Who Has Everything, Roy G. Biv Gallery, Columbus, OH

2010 The Phenomenology of Time, Kuhn Gallery, Marion, OH

Visions in Clay, LH Horton Jr. Gallery, Stockton, CA  

Vox VI, Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

After the Pedestal, The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH

2010 Masters of Fine Arts Exhibition: You and Me and Everyone We Know, Urban 

Arts Space, Columbus, OH

Grants, Awards    

2020         Ontario Arts Council, Visual Artists Creation Project Grant

2018 Victor Spinsky Award for Emerging Artists, NCECA, Pittsburgh, PA

                    Canada Council for the Arts, Exploration and Creation Grant

2016 Ontario Arts Council, Craft Projects Individuals Grant

2015             Canada Council for the Arts, Fine Craft: Grants to Artists and Curators 

2014             Ontario Arts Council, Craft Projects, Individual Artist Grant

2013 The Winifred Shantz Award, Clay and Glass Gallery, Waterloo, ON

                    Canada Council for the Arts, Project Grant to Visual Artists,

2012 Nominated for RBC Emerging Artist People’s Choice Award by Steve 

        Heinemann

Best of Category, Ceramics Award, 51st Annual Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition

2011 The David E. Davis Award for Artistic Excellence in After The Pedestal, The 

Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH


Professional Experience, Residencies, Talks   

2023             Panel presentation and discussion at Toward Future Bodies, part of ICAF

                                        at The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto, ON

2015 - present Part-time Faculty, Sheridan College, School of Crafts and Design, 

                                      Ceramics Department, Oakville, ON

2018 Emerging Artist Talk, NCECA Conference, Pittsburg, PA

2015 Community art facilitator, Mabelle Arts, Etobicoke, ON

2014 Artist in Residence, Zentrum für Keramik, Berlin, Germany

2012 Visiting Artist/Faculty, Sheridan College, School of Crafts and Design, 

                                      Ceramics Department, Oakville, ON

2011-2014 Artist in Residence, Craft Studio, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, ON

2008-2010  Instructor, Department of Art, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH


Exhibition Catalogues, Books, Reviews                               

Bringing Art to the Trail, The Hamilton Spectator, Aug.27, 2022

Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World, catalogue, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2019

The Beasts Came Marching One by One, Murray Whyte, Toronto Star, Feb.11, 2017

Janet Macpherson: A Canadian Bestiary, catalogue, The Gardiner Museum, 2017

Episode, catalogue, Galerie McClure, 2016

Tame piglets and holy cows-The ceramics of the artist Janet Macpherson, New Ceramics, 

July/August 2015


Collections

Contemporary Ceramics Collection of the Art Gallery of Burlington, Burlington, ON

Contemporary Ceramics Collection of The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, Toronto, ON

Other works from the WHAT HOLDS Exhibition