Salvation and Care in Clay
Installation view of Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald, Courtesy of The Bronx Museum. Photo by Argenis Apolinario, 2025.
As the artist’s primary medium, clay is rightfully the star of Reverend Joyce McDonald’s solo exhibition Ministry at the Bronx Museum of Art, which features a large selection of her hand-scale figurative sculptures that she began making in the 1990s. However, in addition to clay, McDonald’s use of personally accumulated objects in her sculptural figures brings forth a level of verisimilitude that is unexpected and deeply personal, especially if you were only to examine each figure’s expressive, almost exaggerated representations.
Reverend Joyce McDonald (1951). My Dad, My Hero (Willie McDonald), 1998. House paint, Mod Podge on air-dry clay, and the artist’s father’s shirt and camera. 13 × 11 ½ × 12 inches. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody.
In one work, the artist uses her deceased father’s shirt to wrap around a torso, with a real camera hanging around the figure’s neck. The entire sculpture, covered with a monochromatic, exuberant gold, is titled My Dad, My Hero (Willie McDonald) (1998), with the camera alluding to her father’s work in photography. The bust exudes paternal warmth, undercut by a sense of loss. Each sculpture unveils more and more about the artist, both overtly and obliquely, telling her tale of surviving addiction, a diagnosis of HIV during the AIDS epidemic, and the community and faith that brought her through it. Here, by molding a reflection of her life and decorating it with the precious objects she has amassed, McDonald repeatedly asserts the importance of interdependence and caretaking in her work.
Reverend Joyce McDonald (1951). Momma’s Love, 1998 Acrylic, Mod Podge, paper towel, bracelet, and sequins on air-dry clay 11 × 7 × 7 ¾ inches. Courtesy of the artist, Gordon Robichaux, New York, and Maureen Paley, London.
The majority of the sculptures are set on top of large, stepped pedestals that allude to the artist’s previous use of domestic surfaces for display, such as stairs and furniture. While the choice of display creates an intoxicating landscape of delightful and dramatic figures, there is a loss of examining the worked surfaces and subtle details of the way McDonald treats her material. The greatest strength of this organization, though, is its ability to arrange each artwork in a thematic and temporally unified manner. For example, three works are stacked in ascending order, one on top of the other. Up front, Momma’s Love (1998) features a maternal figure in a violet-purple outfit, a pearl necklace with a cross, and a black hat, evoking the notion of Sunday’s best. One step above and behind are two parents painted silver, clutching small children—this sort of familial embrace is a common motif throughout. And finally, behind all of this is Standing Strong (1998), which presents a triumphant woman in a white robe with her head held high.
Each ascending step highlights the necessity of support—a mother’s unwavering love, instilling faith, and the tender embrace of a family—and how this reliance ultimately leads to salvation, dignity, and purpose in Rev. McDonald’s life. The artist was born and raised in Brooklyn in the Farragut Houses to a middle-class family of creatives—her father practiced photography, her mother worked with clothing and furniture, and her sister became a successful novelist. Following her father’s death, the artist experienced addiction to heroin, gave birth to two daughters who were partially raised by McDonald’s mother, and eventually recovered from her addiction in 1994, but was diagnosed with HIV.
Reverend Joyce McDonald (1951). Oh Lord..., 2002. Spray paint, Mod Podge, fabric, and graphite on air-dry clay. 6 × 8 × 5 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Gordon Robichaux, New York, and Maureen Paley, London.
During her treatment, McDonald attended an art therapy program, where she learned to work with clay and started her practice, which provided a cathartic outlet. While many of the works tap into the redemptive qualities of working with the medium, there is also an inimitable vulnerability achieved. Queen Detox (1998) is a woman in a medical gown and hospital bracelet sitting, hunched over with a look of intense concentration—perhaps pain, prayer, or both. Oh Lord… (2002) forms a monochrome metallic silver man hunched over, crumpled in a ball with his face in his arms. Across both figures, McDonald shows a spectrum of suffering: her own experience of withdrawal and the difficulties that we all face just by existing.
What makes the reverend’s work so powerful is that it normalizes and uplifts a myriad of things that are typically shunned in contemporary culture, especially in the US. We are all reliant on other people throughout our lives, just as McDonald was reliant on her family, faith, and community for support that was absolutely necessary—not just for the obvious experiences of surviving addiction and the AIDS crisis, but even the creative nurturing she received throughout her life from her loved ones and later those who encouraged her sculpture. These works rebuke the gross myths propagated in the US about self-reliance and individualism, and proudly state that we, in fact, need one another. Rather than contriving these complex ideas from a removed place, though, Joyce McDonald naturally infuses them into her sculptures with an adoration that makes each work so precious and endlessly compelling.
Reverend Joyce McDonald (1951). Queen Detox, 1998. Acrylic and fabric on air-dry clay, 9 × 13 × 6 inches. Courtesy of the artist, Gordon Robichaux, New York, and Maureen Paley, London.
Reverend Joyce McDonald: Ministry is on view at the Bronx Museum from September 5, 2025 through January 11, 2026.
