Carey McDougall’s work explores the sterilizing and romanticizing of Shaker culture as reflected in the rich Shaker museum and reproduction industries and the commoditization of Shaker furniture and objects. Her drawings and sculptures challenge the popular lens on Shaker culture, a lens that predominantly emphasizes functional, harmonized and ordered aesthetics, by situating elements of Shaker furniture and objects with the less simplified evidence of human bodies and lived lives. Integrating cell-like and other bodily elements and picturing lesser-known aspects of their lives into the Shaker picture, the work enlivens the current sterile and human-less face of Shaker culture.

Carey McDougall has had solo exhibitions throughout Ohio and Connecticut and has exhibited at various museum, galleries, and universities, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Sofia Press Gallery in Bulgaria, State University of New York Oneonta, Burlington County College, University of Connecticut Avery Point, and Hartford College for Women.