The Massillon Museum will exhibit paintings by Maria McDonald—In Another Life: A Tale of Love, Loss, and Living—from January 27 through March 17, 2024, in Studio M. A free public reception for the artist will be held on Sunday, February 4, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. A MassMusings podcast interview with the artist will be posted on the Museum website and Spotify at noon EST on Tuesday, March 5.

McDonald creates large-scale oil paintings that are tied to reality, but exist in a different place. In Another Life: A Tale of Love, Loss, and Living explores the artist's inner world and how it has been affected by her experiences.  She is influenced by religious texts, mythology, and pop culture. In her paintings with vivid colors, she depicts women in environments where they are free to be themselves. In other, more realistically-colored paintings, her self-portraits face the viewer, reflecting the constraints of expectations placed upon her as a woman in contemporary society. Themes of feminism, love, loss, freedom, and heartbreak are present in all of the paintings. 

The artist, who works and lives in Massillon, received her BFA in painting from Kent State University in December 2023. She has been making art since she was a child, when she often visited the Massillon Museum. While she was working on her degree, bands invited her to paint during their performances. Her live music paintings were featured in the exhibition Frequency of Color in September 2023. McDonald paints large-scale oil paintings in her Massillon studio. Her new body of artwork explores the hidden aspects of love.