David McDougall
David McDougall is a Canadian sculptor born in Toronto. He acquired his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Queen’s University, Kingston, and completed his Master of Fine Arts at York University in 2008. Before his current position as a studio technician and instructor at the University of Ottawa, McDougall taught as an instructor of fine arts at York University.
In 2007, while still a graduate student at York University, McDougall created a bronze bust of Pakistani founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The bust marks McDougall’s signature use of the bronze medium, but in a more traditional manner as compared to his later works.
McDougall’s early career centered on figurative sculptures, but rather than copy the styles of traditional bronze sculpture, he explored the correlation between bronze and snapshot photography. In his series Veruccio Dante’s Sexy from 2008, McDougall takes the traditional belief of the bronze monument as a medium used to depict authoritative figures and subverts the antiquated notion by representing everyday figures from modern street photography.
Through his collaborations with artists such as Daniel Jolliffe (The Aesthetic Rover, 2014) and Sasha Phipps (Rite of Way, 2014), McDougall has investigated the likes of kinetic and electronic art through accessible social media platforms like Vimeo.
McDougall’s art is currently focused on socio-political issues, or what he refers to as “aesthetic issues related to technology and the environment.”