Myfanwy Macleod

Myfanwy MacLeod (born 1961) is a Canadian artist who lives, and works, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has exhibited work in Canada, the United States of America, and Europe. MacLeod received an award from La Fondation André Piolat, and a VIVA award from the Doris and Jack Shadbolt Foundation (1999).

Early life MacLeod grew up between Oakville, Ontario, and London, Ontario. She takes interest in how an image or object can be transformed to change its meaning. In recent work, MacLeod directs focus towards how popular culture has portrayed masculinity through the lens of modernist art history. Artistic mediums that MacLeod works in are sculpture, drawing, painting, and photography, performance video, and sound installation. MacLeod completed her Master of Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1995. Emily Carr University of Art and Design held at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, Ontario. Curated by Philip Monk, Bounce included works by Myfanwy MacLeod, Brian Jungen, and Damian Moppett. Bounce was an exhibition primarily based on sculpture, and included sketches and drawings. Wood For The People, (2002),

Hammertown (2002–2004) Hammertown was a touring exhibition curated by Reid Shier and co-presented by the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland (2002), Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver (2002), and the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Manitoba (2004).

Work in Scotland In the spring of 2005, MacLeod was part of the three-month-long Glenfiddich Distilleries artist-in-residence program. During the residency, MacLeod documented her experience through photography, sculpture, and drawing. She recorded specific aspects of the area surrounding the distilleries, and notably- the deterioration of buildings on the land that Glenfiddich Distilleries inhabits. and was curated by Cate Rimmer A Brief Overview of Personology contained several works by MacLeod that were under the themes surrounding the use of self-help books, consumerism, and comedy, creating a dynamic setting of satire. MacLeod pulls inspiration from Tracy Cabot's How To Make a Man Fall in Love With You, a self-help book and appropriates illustrations from the book, putting them into the realm of fine art for public viewing. Works by MacLeod include four silkscreen prints titled How To Make a Man Fall in Love With You (2000), a wood sculpture called One Week (2000), twelve ink drawings on vellum paper based on film stills (2000), and The Greeter (2000),

The Tiny Kingdom (2001) The Tiny Kingdom (2000) is a wood and mixed media based sculpture, measuring fourteen feet high, four feet long, and four feet wide. The Tiny Kingdom is a full-size scale of an outhouse, inspired by the one used in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). and "foregrounds the anxious relations between art and society, country and city, colony and imperialist nation". The Tiny Kingdom is now in the permanent collection at the National Art Gallery of Canada. featured work of MacLeod's that stood out from her previous pieces, as photography is not a medium MacLeod used often in her practice before this residency. Works included in Where I Lived and What I Lived For range from large-scale photographs, drawings, to sculpture, and installations. This exhibition showcases the influence Scotland had on her. and said that "Scotland offered [her] the chance to approach [her] work in a different way". both in real and imagined ways, following a theme that references minimalism. The name of the exhibition alludes to JRR Tolkien's literary piece The Hobbit, and 1970s cultural references, including Led Zeppelin. Myfanwy MacLeod, or There and Back Again also hints at the idea of the Bildungsroman.

Myfanwy MacLeod, or There And Back Again took place in two separate sites- in 2013, it was exhibited at Museum London, Ontario. In 2014, the exhibit was shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery, in British Columbia. This component of the exhibition was based on hybridity, combining the works by MacLeod exhibited at Museum London with chosen pieces from the Vancouver Art Gallery's permanent collection, following the theme of a "Cock and Bull story". to one that plays even more on the idea of "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll".

The exhibition held in Vancouver British Columbia contained three additional pieces by MacLeod that were not shown in London, Ontario. These pieces were Albert Walker (2014), Dragon (2014), and Presence (2013). Presence, a small sculpture placed on a dolly Dragon, is a photomural on paper paralleling MacLeod's Albert Walker, which is a sculptural installation piece that takes form as an entertainment center- furniture that one could find housing a television in a middle-class home. This entertainment center holds twelve enlarged buds of marijuana, which were duplicated through three-dimensional print and cast in nylon. created in 2012. Stack, 2013, is an installation of screen prints on canvas that resembles a stack of three by six "larger than life" Marshall speakers. Some pieces within Myfanwy MacLeod, or There And Back Again are named after Led Zeppelin songs, including Ramble On, 2013- a 1977 Camaro Rally Sport presented on a steel stand and a sculpture made up of a mannequin, Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and beer cans titled Living, Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman) (2013). playing on the humour in the taboo within the forms. MacLeod touched on a more serious topic by including images of British Columbia born Dorothy Stratten, an actress and playboy model from the 1970s with a shocking and grim story. Don’t Stop Dreaming also reflects on previous work relating to the theme of self-help books.

Macleod has explored topics of folklore traditions in Hex series (2009).

Using the idea of playground design as a starting point, MacLeod and Oksanen created five “modernist play” sculptures that are painted black and white, and are made out of glass fibre and concrete. The largest sculptures are two tall "sister" forms titled Two Figures in Orbit. They are a nod to the modernist sculptor Barbara Hepworth, from whom the titles for the individual sculptures are borrowed. The figures are shaped like bubble braids. One of the figures has wavy vertical stripes, while the other has dots. The second-largest figure, titled Dryad, is striped. Other figures are The Family Man (a checkered form that reads as a stationary seesaw , an X, or an object from the game of "jacks"), The Magic Stones (four small striped rounded forms), and The Musician (shaped like a knuckle ring, patterned with triangles). Grouped together, the sculptures are collectively titled Playtime.

Playtime’s groupings and forms evoke the different constructions of family. The rounded forms and forms with holes in them relate to the body, healthy and unhealthy. "WWJD (What Would Judd Do)" CJ Press (2008) "Whole Lotta Love" - Publication Studio, Vancouver. (2012) Master Rabbit I Saw, Capilano Review