The Phantom of the Art Museum

Creepy-cool Canadian artist opens her process for all comers

Comments (0) By Clay McNear Thursday, Oct 1 2009

Why couldn’t our college professors have been as boss as Jillian McDonald, namesake of ASU Art Museum’s latest too-cool-for-school residency, "Social Studies Project 5 -- Jillian McDonald: Alone Together in the Dark"? Our dubious profs always wore twee elbow patches and looked like they’d just fallen off the couch after snoozing through a Star Trek: The Original Series marathon. McDonald, an associate professor of fine art at New York’s Pace University and co-curator of the college’s Pace Digital Gallery, digs horror flicks, the company of strangers, and making herself up as a loathsome phantasm for her infamous series of artworks known as “Zombie Portraits.”

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During her residency, which continues through November 14 at the Tempe museum, 51 East 10th Street, the offbeat Canada native (aren’t they all?) will open her semi-creepy creative process to all comers. She will, she says, focus on "haunted sites, ghosts and abandoned houses . . . sustainable living, ghost towns, and the Day of the Dead.” An exhibit of the resultant works will follow.

Mon., Oct. 5; Tuesdays-Saturdays. Starts: Oct. 5. Continues through Nov. 14, 2009