Plains Cree photographer Meryl McMaster uses self-portraiture to examine issues of cultural identity. Her work, which has performative and sculptural components, interrogates her status as a person of Indigenous and European descent in Canada. She also appropriates ethnographic portraits to intervene in the historical documentation of Native North American peoples. McMaster completed her undergraduate education at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. Among other distinctions, she received the Canon Canada Prize in 2010 and the 2018 Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists (now known as The William and Meredith Saunderson Prizes for Emerging Artists).