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“From the minute we are born, we look for faces in everything as a way to connect”.
Do we all wear masks? Do we all pretend in a daily life, trying to protect our inner world?
The artist Miya Turnbull proves this phenomenon with her art. She endeavors to demonstrate that the diversity of reactions, behaviors is normal and should exist, that there is hope for people to follow their inner selves.
Tell us about yourself. How did you start your career as an artist?
I am a visual artist, currently living in beautiful Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I have always worked with many different mediums, but right now my passion is — mask making, portraiture and performance. I grew up on a farm in Alberta and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (U of Lethbridge) over twenty years ago.
When I came out of University, I did not know how to make a career as an artist, how to get grant funding or to be exhibited. I was not sure how to afford to keep making art, while paying rent, especially as someone, who was not making commercial art. It took a lot of time to come back around to make art my full time affair. Even today, there is no guarantee that my projects will get funded. However, I have had an immense amount of support all along from my family. For the past 5 years here in Canada, I have received numerous federal and provincial grants and paid exhibits so I have been lucky to be able to keep going. That has generated a lot of momentum and now opportunities are flowing because of the body of work I have been able to create.
What do your masks mean to you? What message do you want to transmit by presenting them to the world?
Why did you choose your face as a base for the project?
I have always been so fascinated by masks and I realized how people are innately drawn to faces. From the minute we are born, we look for faces in everything as a way to connect.
The first mask I made was a Self-Portrait and, from there, I made masks of friends and family. Working with my own face started making the most sense to use, since it was always available to me, and I did not need to constantly ask for permission to use other people’s images for exhibiting and photographing.
Plus, there is something interesting about Self-Portraits, as they offer the most interesting perspective about people and how they change over time, not only as a person growing older but also in how we see ourselves. As I started envisioning a body of work, I realized that by using my face as the constant, I could make so many different variations from there, and I really start digging deeper into exploring my personal identity.
My face has been a source of questioning by strangers on a daily basis: “Where are you from? What are you?”. People tried to categorize me (not quite Asian, not quite White). So my explorations originally stemmed from these repeated encounters that lasted over decades. Then, it just kept growing from there and has become a collection of over 150 self-portrait masks and countless portraits and videos.
Do you think that the society of today should interfere in our identity and our personal emotions?
I think, because of society we often have a skewed perception about ourselves, which can affect our personal emotions. As one example, our whole lives we are shown certain beauty standards, most of which are unattainable and unrealistic, and we are taught that our value lies in a way how we look. This goes on to negatively affect our self-image, self-esteem, and perhaps we feel the need to hide our ‘flaws’, as deemed by society. This can be said for so many things, including our identity beyond the skin level.
Does the society we live in make it a safe place to be ourselves or do we feel like we need to hide who we truly are? My hope is that through more diversity and representation reflected in media, people will see the beauty of many skin tones, of many shapes and forms, and abilities, and ways of being that are natural and beautiful and make the world a more interesting place to co-exist.
My hope is that people find strength in their inner selves and discover who they are, on their own terms, and that individuals, communities and society will support that.
How do your masks differ from how they are traditionally used in other artistic or cultural contexts?
There is a slight irony in making masks of my face, and then covering my own face with the masks that I have constructed. But by doing so, I take control of what people see or how much they see of me. I hide ‘myself’ in that process, but then something previously invisible is revealed. My masks are a sculptural medium in which I explore identity through the material and form. For example, I love changing the underlying shape of the mask underneath in contrast to the image of my face that is on the front, as a way to create tension between the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ persona. For that reason also, I love using the back of the mask, which typically is not shown; the concave space of the mask can be a reflection of our subconsciousness or our ‘inner world’.
The physical mask is one way to explore identity, but then there are so many possibilities to go with from there. I love wearing the masks in different ways, on different parts of my body, or having numerous people wear my masks to create new Self-Portraits of which I feel there is no limit to the imagination.
Lately I have been branching out into moving and performing with them, trying to create gestures that resonate with my explorations about myself. I just feel very lucky to have tapped into this wonderful medium and tradition where there are so many possibilities that resonate for my purposes to explore Self-Portraiture as a genre, and perhaps in some small ways, I’ve pushed the medium further too by adding in my voice and ideas.
Do you think your life has changed with the advent of Instagram?
What role does the online community of artists play in your creative career?
I have met a lot of artists and mask makers online and I love connecting with people. This was especially important during the pandemic when we could not have travelled but I was meeting people from all over the world. I am happy to offer any advice and share my work. In return, I am inspired by all the art I see people do. It is also very gratifying, when people have reached out to me, saying I have inspired them to start making art, or to try mask making, etc.
I get approached for collaborations all the time but it is only recently I have worked together with other artists and I am extremely selective about who I work with. Most of the time, people just want me to send them my masks for their photoshoots but I am more interested in working with artists directly, where together we take my masks to another level with movement or interesting ideas, in which case it expands and lifts both our respective practises in various ways.
Do you have any plans for the future that you can share with us?
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