Philadelphia illustrator highlights face masks in virtual First Friday exhibit

Illustration by Natalie Hope McDonald
Photo credit Courtesy of Natalie Hope McDonald
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio)  A Philadelphia artist is hosting a virtual First Friday art exhibit starting midnight between Thursday and Friday that highlights what we've suddenly been seeing everywhere this past month: masks. 

The new exhibit — called "40 Masks" — is a collection of 40 illustrations by Philadelphia artist Natalie Hope McDonald, based on photos that she solicited from people on social media.

"It felt like I had to create these for that reason, almost as a testament for what we've been going through,” she said. 

She said usually, the goal of a portrait is to show a person's face, but this is different. 

"This was really different in that I'm drawing somebody who's masked, I'm drawing somebody wearing coverings, in many cases with glasses, sunglasses, scarves, so their identity isn't the identity you might expect, but it's the new identity they have as we go through this particular experience as a society,” she added. 

Her exhibit debuts on her website.

Each of the 40 masked portraits is being sold for $100, with 10% of each sale going to a relief fund to help out the out-of-work staff at Dirty Frank's, a Center City bar that has supported and displayed McDonald's work in the past.