Wynn Newhouse Awards

Disability
Living with HIV since the 1990s

Statement
As a teenager, she performed at the Apollo Theater in the girl group The Primettes. After her HIV diagnosis in 1985, and a long battle with addiction, McDonald was ordained as a minister at the Church of the Open Door in 2009. She uses her own struggles to drive her work as an artist, activist, advocate, and “spiritual nurse.”

Through her art and ministry, McDonald shares her contagious joy and love and inspires women to get in touch with their inner beauty and dignity. She uses sculpture, painting, poetry, and song to help people 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. She is also an active artist-member of Visual AIDS. McDonald is the proud mother of two daughters and has two sons-in-law, eleven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

McDonald is represented by Gordon Robichaux, New York, where she presented solo exhibitions in 2021 and 2024, and by Maureen Paley, London, UK, where she presented her first solo show in 2023, which was profiled in The Guardian, The Art Newspaper, and Artforum. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including in Hove, UK, at Maureen Paley: Morena di Luna; in Los Angeles at Marc Selwyn Gallery and Parker Gallery; in New York as part of the exhibitions Souls Grown Diaspora at apexart (organized by Sam Gordon), AIDS at Home (Art and Everyday Activism) at the Museum of the City of New York, Everyday at La Mama Galleria, PERSONS OF INTEREST at the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division (organized by Sam Gordon), Curated at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, and taken-up at Judson Memorial Church; and in New Jersey as part of HIV+WOMEN+ART at Puffin Foundation Gallery.

The Shell Of A Man 2020 Terracotta air dry clay, sea shells, acrylic varnish 7½ x 4¼ x 6¼ inches	Our Lives Mattered (Trayvon) 2020 Terracotta air dry clay, Wite-Out, acrylic, varnish, marker, Elmer's Glue 10¾ x 6¾ x 2¾ inches	Togetherness 2021 Glazed ceramic 5¾ x 4¾ x 4½ inches	Golden Tears 2021 Glazed ceramic, adhesive and acrylic 6 x 6 x 4 inches
Family of Hope 2022 Air dry clay, paper towel, plastic 9½ x 6 x 3 inches	Beauty In the Midst (of The Battle) 2024 Glazed ceramic, oil, costume pearl, epoxy 5½ x 7½ x 6 inches	Beauty in the Midst (A Family of Faith) 2024, Glazed ceramic, oil 13½ x 10 x 1½ inches	Beauty in the Midst (Locked in Locks) 2024 Glazed ceramic, oil, epoxy and found object 9 x 7½ x 1¼ inches