Jenny McMaster

Based in Gatineau, Quebec, Jenny McMaster earned her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Ottawa in 2021. Her practice includes sculptural works, fibres, encaustics, and performance art. For the past ten years, her primary medium has been handmade paper. “I am fascinated by paper’s figurative and tactile capabilities as well as its identity as an organic substance with a natural and cultural history,” she says. “Paper, like the land, is not a neutral ground or void space.”

Her recent artwork has explored animal studies, mycology, plants, ecology, and sound. Her master’s thesis exhibition Hare’s Choice (2022) involved a tactile yet otherworldly portrayal of the hare’s environment using animation, sound, paper pulp, and other fibres.

Jenny McMaster is a former member of the Enriched Bread Artists Studios in Ottawa and a current member of Les Artistes de Cent Trente-Cinq in Gatineau. Her work is held in many private collections and the City of Ottawa Fine Art Collection. She has exhibited in many public gallery spaces including Espace Pierre-Debain (Gatineau), the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum (Almonte), City Hall Gallery (Ottawa), and the Ottawa Art Gallery. She is currently working on a project, funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, to create speakers and instruments inspired by the forms and languages of living organisms.