Exhibition runs May 24th – July 20th, 2024

Opening Reception May 24th 6pm @Yuill Family Gallery

This exhibition is part of the 2024 Medalta International Artists in Residence program.

Artist Statement 

Collaboration of fire and form. Tory MacKay is an emerging Canadian artist specializing in ceramics and atmospheric firing processes. The intimacy of a vessel draws endless fascination for the artist. From shaping, to multi-day firings, to resting within a new home – the process carries all ends of extremes, concluding with a great sense of humility. The nature of this intensity creates a necessary overlap between environment and personhood. This nexus is the core of Tory’s work. 

Powerful and ambiguous. Is that not what it is to be a woman, much less a woman of certain dispositions. In the planning of this show, there was great discussion around the allowance of my title: Stone Cold Dyke. This prompted a research journey, seeking a cheeky workaround. What I found was so much more. 

Water systems and altered landscapes are what drew me to be an artist. Alongside this womanhood, queerness, and the in-between of gender have wrapped circles around my mind. This moment, standing in the face of possible censorship, forged a connection – resonant and loud. 

Take any social commentary that pertains to women, to lesbians. Replace those words with the following: water, landscape, environment. Each time I found them socially interchangeable. Considered as deeply dangerous, yet entirely nonconsequential. Something to be respected, something to be controlled tightly. Fragile, and infinitely powerful. 

So here it stands, my love letter. To the truest versions of yourself. In an era where existence is radical, how can we learn to come home? To ourselves, to one another, to our becoming. Now, previously, and into the unknown future.