ASTMAN, Barbara

Barbara Astman is one of Canada’s most highly acclaimed artists. Her work has received national and international recognition. Since the 1970s she has explored a wide range of photographic and mixed media. Her work is represented in many museum, corporate, and private collections, in Canada, United States, and Europe.

Astman has degrees from the Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Craftsmen, and Ontario College of Art. Active in the Toronto arts community, Astman has sat on numerous boards and advisory committees. Currently, she is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Art Gallery of Ontario and works as a Professor in the Faculty of Art at the Ontario College of Art & Design. In 2011 she was appointed to the Canadian Curatorial Committee at the AGO.

In 1995 the Art Gallery of Hamilton organized a major touring retrospective exhibition, Barbara Astman - Personal/Persona - A 20 Year Survey, curated by Liz Wylie. She is represented by the Corkin Gallery, Toronto.

Astman has been commissioned for public art projects beginning in the mid eighties. In 1987 she completed a floor installation for the Calgary Winter Olympics. In 2005 she completed a public art installation for the new Canadian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. Most recently she completed a public art project in Toronto, the Murano on Bay, comprised of 217 windows with photo-based imagery.

In 2008 Astman and AGO Assistant Curator Georgiana Uhlyarik collaborated on a curatorial project for the Transformation AGO Exhibition, dealing with Joyce Wieland and early feminist practice. Astman’s photo-based work was included in the AGO exhibition titled: Beautiful Fiction, fall 2009. In May 2011, her recent installation, dancing with che: enter through the gift shop, opened at the Kelowna Art Galley and has been on tour to the McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, ON, MOCA, Calgary, both in 2012 and will open at MOCA, Toronto in the winter of 2013.

Source: Barbara Astman