Showing 27 results

Authority record
educators

Mars, Tanya

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/105089378
  • Person
  • 1948-

Tanya Mars (1948- ) is a feminist performance and video artist, educator, and arts administrator active mainly in Toronto, Ontario. She was born in Monroe, Michigan and attended Fine Arts courses at the University of Michigan. In 1967 she moved to Montreal with her former husband where she attained landed immigrant status in Canada. She attended Fine Arts courses at Sir George Williams University and Loyola College (now incorporated into Concordia University) before eventually moving to Toronto in 1979. She has been an integral figure in the Canadian art scene since her 1974 exhibition Codpieces: Phallic Paraphernalia. She has performed widely across Canada and also internationally in Chile, Mexico, Sweden, France, Poland, China and Finland. Mars’ approach to art is interdisciplinary, borrowing themes and performance techniques from vaudeville, theatre, stand-up comedy, film, photography, magic shows, and dance. In her early works, she would center a repertoire of vibrant female characters within layers of visually rich, satirical, absurdist imagery to disrupt and question sociopolitical relations of power and cultural narratives of gender (e.g. “Pure” series). For Mars, the live presence is critical. Her art is an ongoing process involving an interactive experience with her audience, leading to a dialogue of meanings that only become materialized when the piece is performed (e.g. Competing for Space). Furthermore, she directly involves herself as both a performer and a physical object (e.g. Tanya-in-the-Box) whereby the human body and its movement or constraint becomes an integral component of each piece. In doing so, she explores the relationships between costume and wearable art, presentation, sculpture, and spectacle to speak to how the body engages with materials to inform how we perceive ourselves and our social conditions. In the 1980s, Mars began to incorporate video art into her repertoire, creating video adaptations of her live performance art (e.g. Mz Frankenstein), however she views these as creative adaptations designed for home consumption rather than documentations of the live experience. Since the 1990s, Mars has shifted her artistic direction towards creating immersive, site-specific, durational performance art featuring evolving tableaux vivant structured around repetitive tasks (e.g. Hot, Tyranny of Bliss, In Pursuit of Happiness).
Mars was a founding member, curator, and director of Powerhouse Gallery (La Centrale) in Montreal from 1974-1978, editor of Parallelogramme magazine from 1977-1989, and a board member of ANNPAC (the Association of National Non-Profit Artist-run Centres) from 1977-1989. Since 1998 she has been a member of the 7a*11d Collective which produces a bi-annual International Festival of Performance Art in Toronto. She previously taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University and the Ontario College of Art and Design. Most recently, she taught performance art and video at the University of Toronto Scarborough and was part of the graduate faculty of the Master of Visual Studies Program at the University of Toronto. In 2004 Mars was named Artist of the Year at the Untitled Arts Awards in Toronto and she is also the winner of a 2008 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. In 2014 she received an honorary doctorate from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University.

Winsom

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/105700218
  • Person
  • 1946-

Winsom (1946 - ) is a prominent Canadian-Jamaican Maroon multi-media artist, activist, arts educator and mentor to young people. She was born in Jamaica and studied at the Jamaica School of Art (1965-1968) in Kingston (now the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts), where she majored in mural painting. She moved to Canada in 1969 and was based predominantly in Hamilton, Kingston, and Toronto. From 2004 to 2022 Winsom was based in both Canada and Belize, and since 2022 has been based in the GTA.

Winsom’s work is known for spiritual symbolism, particularly reflecting Yoruba and Arawak traditions, and for the use of multiple media including painting, textiles, sculpture and video. Her practice, especially her work with textiles, is influenced by her travels and studies across Ghana and West Africa, where she worked with master dryers and Adrinka printers. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions across Canada and internationally, including the United States and the Caribbean. In 1989 she participated in Black Wimmin: When and Where We Enter, the first Canadian exhibition to feature only the work of Black women artists and to be curated solely by Black women curators. Some of her solo exhibitions include Jumping the Big Boa at the Image Factory Gallery in Belize, The Masks We Wear at the Agnes Etherington Art Gallery at Queen’s University in Kingston, and Winsom: I Rise at the AGO. She has also been involved with several theatre and dance productions as a designer and artist, predominantly with the Nightwood Theatre in Toronto.

In addition to her work as an artist, Winsom has made significant contributions to the arts community as a dedicated and longtime teacher, mentor, and activist. She has taught in schools, workshops, festivals, and other settings to students of all ages. In 1992, Winsom was a founding member and instructor with the Fresh Arts collective, which established programs for Black youth in Toronto to receive mentorship in the arts, including dance, music, and visual arts. She was also a founding member of the Draw It Black Artist’s Collective (DIBAC), a not-for-profit group launched in 2000 that was dedicated to promoting the work of African Canadian artists. Winsom is the Founder and Director of the Winsom Foundation, a Belize-based non-profit organization established in 2007. Through this foundation she supports arts education for young people in the Cristo Rey Village area, through programs such as an after-school arts club. Winsom has worked with many education and community-oriented organizations as an educator and artist, including the YMCA and the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO. She has frequently shared her knowledge and expertise through presentations, panel talks, and other speaking engagements.

Winsom has been recognized with several awards, including an Honorary Doctorate from the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD) in 2015, the Marilyn Lastman Award from the City of Toronto Arts Foundation in 2002, and a Canada Council Visual Arts “A” Grant in 2003. Her long career as an artist and activist has had tremendous impact on subsequent generations of artists.

Blackwood, David

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/13106001
  • Person
  • 1941-2022

David Blackwood (1941-2022) was a Canadian artist known for his prints depicting Newfoundland life and culture. Born in Wesleyville, Newfoundland in 1941, Blackwood was exposed to subjects which influenced the themes represented in his art: fishermen and sealers and their families; relationships with the land; harsh landscapes; and the importance of tradition to communities on Canada’s east coast. Blackwood attended the Ontario College of Art from 1959-1963, where he studied printmaking. Subsequently, he was the first artist-in-residence at Erindale College at University of Toronto Mississauga, from 1969 to 1975. The Erindale College Art Gallery was renamed The Blackwood Gallery in 1992 in the artist’s honour. In 1976, Blackwood was the subject of a documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada – titled Blackwood – which was nominated for an Academy Award. Blackwood was a member of the AGO Board of Trustees and the Inuit Art Foundation in Ottawa. He was also the recipient of numerous other awards and accolades, including honorary doctorates at the University of Calgary and Memorial University of Newfoundland (1992); a National Heritage Award (1993); the Order of Ontario (2002); and the Order of Canada (1993).

Blackwood exhibited nationally and internationally, with over 90 solo shows throughout the span of his career. In 1999 he donated 242 archival prints to the AGO, making the gallery an international research centre for the artist’s work. He was named an honorary chair of the AGO in 2003. The AGO presented a major retrospective of Blackwood’s work in 2011, titled Black Ice: David Blackwood Prints of Newfoundland. Blackwood’s works are also in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Winnipeg Art Gallery, National Gallery of Florence, and Uffizi Gallery in Florence, amongst others. Blackwood has resided in Port Hope, Ontario since the 1970s, where he was a teacher of drawing and painting at Trinity College School.

Lake, Suzy

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/16235838
  • Person
  • 1947-

Suzy Lake (born Detroit, Michigan, 1947) is a visual artist and educator whose work uses photoconceptual, performance and video strategies to examine and critique ideals of the body, gender and identity. She immigrated to Montreal in 1968, following the 1967 Detroit riots, and became a founding member of the artist-run centre Véhicule. Lake’s career has been based in Toronto since the late 1970s. She has taught at the University of Guelph since 1988. Her work is in numerous major public collections including those of the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Winnipeg Art Gallery and Montreal Museum of Fine Art.

Fones, Robert

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/16845071
  • Person
  • 1949-

Robert Fones (born in London, Ontario, 1949) is a visual artist, curator, writer, designer and educator. Employing a strong ethnographical and archaeological component in his work, Fones uses sculpture, painting, woodblock printmaking, typography and photography to investigate the transition from manual to industrial production, and the hidden processes and impacts of geological and cultural change within contemporary society. Since 1976 he has lived and worked in Toronto, represented variously by Carmen Lamanna
Gallery, S.L. Simpson Gallery and (currently) Olga Korper Gallery. He has exhibited at artist-run centres and public institutions throughout Canada and, internationally, in the USA and Germany. His work is held by the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and other public and corporate collections. Fones is an active participant in the visual arts community, having served on the board of the Art Gallery of Ontario, C Magazine Foundation and the Acquisitions Committee of the Design Exchange. He curated an exhibition for The Power Plant on the work of Toronto furniture designer, Russell Spanner, and Cutout: Greg Curnoe, Shaped Collages 1965–1968 for Museum London. He has written extensively
about art and artists such as Greg Curnoe, Murray Favro, Donald Judd and John Massey. Fones has taught at OCAD University, the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and in the Art and Art History Program at Sheridan College. He has published numerous reviews and articles in Vanguard, C Magazine, Parachute and other publications, published several artist books, participated in several poetry readings across the country; and undertaken several design and public art projects. He received the Toronto Arts Award in 1999 and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2011.

Reid, G.A. (George Agnew)

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/18708433
  • Person
  • 1860-1947

George Agnew Reid (1860-1947) was a Canadian artist, architect, educator and administrator influential in the early 20th century and instrumental in the formation of a number of important Canadian art institutions. Born in Wingham Ontario to a Scottish farm family, he studied architecture and book-keeping at his father’s insistence. In 1878 he moved to Toronto to study art. He was able to extend his art education under Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia, where he met the painter Mary Heister. In 1888 the couple travelled to Europe and studied at the Julian and Colorossi Academies, returning to Toronto in 1889. The house he designed and built in Wychwood Park was his home until the end of his life. In 1890, George Reid began reaching at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design. He eventually became principal and researched new theories of art education in the United States and Europe. Under his direction, the art school became independent of the Board of Education and moved into its own building, which he designed, in 1921. He also served as its first Principal. In 1892, George and Mary Reid built two cottages from his design at the artist colony in Onteora, New York. This led to the design of other summer homes and a small church in the Catskills community. They spent summers at this location until 1917 when the war made travel to the United States difficult. In 1921 Mary Heister Reid died, and in 1923 George Reid married Mary Wrinch, a former student and close friend of his first wife. His later life was filled with accomplishments, including the painting of murals for public spaces in Toronto City Hall, Jarvis Collegiate, the Royal Ontario Museum and elsewhere. He was instrumental in obtaining permanent funding and staff for the National Gallery in Ottawa, and was a force behind the establishment of the Art Gallery of Toronto. He was a member of the RCA, serving as President 1906-1907. He influenced a generation of students, among them C.W. Jefferys, through his teaching and created a number of works that exemplify his generation, including Forbidden Fruit, Mortgaging the Homestead, and The Foreclosure of the Mortgage.

Grigor, Angela Nairne

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/21815063
  • Person
  • 1926-

Angela Nairne Grigor is a writer and art educator living in Picton, Ontario. Born in Britain, she attended the Wimbledon School of Art and the Brighton College of Art. She became a Canadian citizen in 1974 and received her MA and PhD from Concordia University in 1982 and 1985, respectively. She worked as a travelling art specialist for five years in England, and taught in Canadian high schools and at Concordia University. She has also exhibited her own drawings, soft sculptures and textiles. She began her research on Arthur Lismer’s teaching career in the 1980’s, and her book, Arthur Lismer, visionary art educator, was published by the McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2002. In that year she was awarded the Prix des Fondateurs de L’Association Canadienne de Histoire de l’Education for the best work in English.

Hagan, Frederick

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/25860986
  • Person
  • 1918-2003

Robert Frederick Hagan, painter, printmaker and educator, was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1918. He was educated at Central Technical School (Toronto) and the Ontario College of Art. From 1941-1946, Hagan was employed as Resident Artist and Master at Pickering College in Newmarket, Ontario. In the spring of 1946, Hagan journeyed to New York for further studies. Later the same year, he began teaching at the Ontario College of Art. In 1955 he became Head of Printmaking, a position which he held until his retirement in 1983. Frederick Hagan has held memberships in the Canadian Society of Graphic Art (of which he was made an Honourary Member in 1965), the Canadian Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, the Ontario Society of Artists, and the Print and Drawing Council of Canada. His work is in the collections of numerous Canadian galleries.

Schaefer, Carl

  • http://viaf.org/viaf/26093774
  • Person
  • 1903-1995

Carl Fellman Schaefer (1903-1995) was a Canadian artist and educator known for his depictions of rural Ontario. John(Jack) Martin (1904-1965) was a British-born Canadian artist, designer and educator. The two, who were friends and colleagues, exchanged letters in illustrated envelopes from circa 1954 until Martin’s death.

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