Reverend Joyce McDonald (b. 1951; Brooklyn, New York) lives and works in New York.

As a teenager, she performed at the Apollo Theater in the girl group The Primettes. After her HIV diagnosis in 1995, and a long battle with addiction, McDonald was ordained as a minister at the Church of the Open Door in 2009. She uses her own struggles to drive her work as an artist, activist, advocate, and “spiritual nurse.” Through her art and ministry, McDonald shares her contagious joy and love and inspires women to get in touch with their inner beauty and dignity. She uses sculpture, painting, poetry, and song to help people find healing. Her work as an activist and advocate includes founding an HIV awareness and creative arts group for young girls and teens, working with women in shelters and hospitals, writing letters to incarcerated women, coordinating her church's AIDS ministry, and serving as assistant director of its children's choir. She is also an active artist-member of Visual AIDS. McDonald is the proud mother of two daughters and has two sons-in-law, twelve grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

McDonald first exhibited her artwork in 1998 at the Jewish Board of Family Services in New York as part of an annual exhibition organized by art therapist Robert Morrissey. She subsequently began sharing her work regularly in churches, community centers, and AIDS organizations, often organizing events and exhibitions herself, as well in numerous exhibitions produced by Visual AIDS at venues such as Judson Memorial Church in New York, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts in Brooklyn, and the Paul Robeson Art Galleries at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. In 1999, McDonald presented her first solo exhibition, The Spirit of Life, at The Church of the Open Door in Brooklyn and went on to exhibit her work regularly in churches, community centers, AIDS organizations, and universities.

Recent solo shows include Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald at the Bronx Museum, New York (2025); Gordon Robichaux, New York (2024 and 2021) and Maureen Paley, London (2023). Her work has been celebrated in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Art Newspaper, Artforum, Frieze, ARTnews, New York Magazine, Acne Paper, and POZ. In conjunction with the institutional survey of the artist’s work, Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald, Visual AIDS published the first major catalog dedicated to McDonald’s work with texts by Kyle Croft and Dr. Jareh Das and an interview with the artist by Rafael Sánchez.

She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including in Hove, UK, at Maureen Paley: Morena di Luna; in Los Angeles at STARS Gallery, Marc Selwyn Gallery, and Parker Gallery; in New York as part of the exhibitions Origin Story at Gordon Robichaux, Souls Grown Diaspora at apexart (organized by Sam Gordon), AIDS at Home (Art and Everyday Activism) at the Museum of the City of New York, Everyday at La Mama Galleria, PERSONS OF INTEREST at the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division (organized by Sam Gordon), Curated at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, and taken-up at Judson Memorial Church; and in New Jersey as part of HIV+WOMEN+ART at Puffin Foundation Gallery.

The artist’s work is held in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; and the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland.

McDonald is a 2022 Ford Foundation Fellow.