11/23/2021
Revered Joyce McDonald’s art practice is a spiritual practice of testimony. She uses sculptures, painting, poetry, and song to help people process pain and find healing. Her work as an activist and advocate includes founding an HIV awareness and creative arts group for young girls and teens, working with women in shelters and hospitals, writing letters to incarcerated women, coordinating her church’s AIDS ministry, and serving as assistant director of its children’s choir. Moved by God’s direction, McDonald’s terracotta portrait, “Our Lives Mattered (Breonna),” is a memorial to Breonna Taylor and part of a series made to honor victims of racial violence. Created in her home kitchen/art studio, this intimate portrait allowed Reverend McDonald to “touch” Bronna’s spirit as her likeness was crafted with air dry clay, acrylic paint, a fake eyelash, and glitter.
“Our LIves Mattered (Breonna)” was presented in last Spring’s auction, Formation: Bodies in Contemporary Art.
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🎨Reverend Joyce McDonald's “Our Lives Mattered (Breonna),” 2020
Terracotta, air-dried clay, acrylic, Wite-Out, marker, fake eyelash, glitter, Elmer's Glue
Courtesy of the Artist and Gordon Robichaux, New York