Biography

Barbara Todd is an interdisciplinary, mid-career artist best known for innovative, quilted textile works in which she marries a minimalist aesthetic to a poetic and politicized sensibility. Her work is represented in museum and private collections, and in large-scale public commissions in Canada and the U.S.

Born in Galt, Ontario, Todd studied fine art and art history at the University of Guelph where she received her BA in 1975. In 1981, she moved to Banff, Alberta, where she lived and worked at the Banff Centre for the Arts for the next decade.

Todd's early exhibitions, which included several photographic installations, and a series of drawings and cut-out silhouettes, were playful explorations of cultural identity as reflected in men and women's clothing. Her "Security Blanket" and "Coffin Quilt series, begun in Banff, have been exhibited widely. Most notably, Barbara Todd : Security Blankets , organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in 1992, toured Canada for three years. In 1993 Todd moved to Montreal; the following year, she began a series of dramatic, black-on-blue quilts based on dreams, poetry and children's drawings which culminated in the acclaimed installation A Bed is a Boat . shown at Galerie Oboro, Montreal (1996), the Library and Gallery, Cambridge (1997) and the Museum for Textiles. Toronto (1998).

In recent years, she has expanded her practice to include drawings and sculptures in metal and glass, which evoke elusive psychological and spiritual states. Recent installations include Heaven and Earth , at the Visual Arts Centre, (2000), du ciel at ArtMûr (2002) and "Bloom" in the exhibition Celan at Galerie Dazibao (2004), (all in Montreal).

Todd presently divides her time between Montreal, where she teaches at Concordia University, and Troy, New York.

Artist Statement

My work draws on a wide variety of references including historical quilts, children's drawings, poetry, casual conversation, as well as contemporary art theory and practice.

I try with each new work to mingle the pleasures and anxieties of mundane dayliness with larger themes: working at the threshold between silence and speech, presence and absence, concrete and immaterial.   Whether a tiny, graphite drawing of pebbles on vellum, or a heavy, dark, woolen quilted cover with appliqué missiles, a sensual grounding in and repetitive working of materials has shaped my creative process consistently over two decades.

CV

Selected solo exhibitions

2004 Space Invaders, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, N.Y., Sept 10 – Nov 21.
2004 High Points: Selections from the Collection of Contemporary Canadian Art Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
2004 Celan – Barbara Todd and Sorel Cohen, Dazibao, Montreal, Jan 15 to Feb 21.
2003 Barbara Todd: du ciel, Conseil des arts textiles, (Art Mûr),
2000 Barbara Todd - Heaven and earth, McClure Gallery, Montréal, October 6-28
1998 Barbara Todd - Installation of Quilts and Drawings, Museum for Textiles, Toronto, February - June.
1996-97 A Bed is a Boat, Galerie Oboro, Montréal, Sept. 14 to Oct. 27, 1996, The Gallery, Cambridge Public Library, May 17 - June 21, l997
1992-95 Barbara Todd: Security Blankets, organized by the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, touring to The Nickle Arts Museum, University of Calgary; The Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon; Mount Saint Vincent Art Gallery, Halifax; The Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina; Sir Wilfred Grenfell College Art Gallery, Cornerbrook; Mount Allison Art Gallery, Sackville; the Art Gallery of Windsor, Windsor; and Oakville Galleries, Oakville.

Selected group exhibitions

2004 Celan (Barbara Todd and Sorel Cohen), Galerie Dazibao, Montréal, winter.
2002 New York après New York, Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Suisse,   le13 Juin au 16 Septembre.
1993-94 Corpus, the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, March 12 - May 28; traveling to the Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff, June 4 - July 11 and to the Oakville Galleries, Oakville, July 1 - August 31, l994.
1993 Subversive Crafts, the List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A., May 7 - June 30. 
1990 PastFutureTense, Winnipeg Art Gallery, September 16 - December 2; Vancouver Art Gallery, January 16 - March 17, l991.

Musée des beaux arts de Montréal
Société immobilière du Québec, Centre juridique Gouin
Musée du Québec, Collection des prêt d'oeuvres d'art
The Canada Council Art Bank
Vancouver Art Gallery
The Mackenzie Gallery, Regina
The Surrey Art Gallery
The Winnipeg Art Gallery
Macdonald Stewart Art Center, University of Guelph
The Alberta Art Foundation
The Banff Centre for the Arts
Grant McEwan Community College, Edmonton
The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff
The Library and Gallery, Cambridge

Grants and Honours

2002 Finalist for the Saidye Bronfman Award, Ottawa.
1981 to the present: recipient of grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

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