Penelope Stewart

Penelope Stewart is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice is informed from her close observation and interaction with the environments encountered through her travels and daily life. Using a wide range of media encompassing expansive architectural installation/interventions, alternative photography and works on paper, Stewart’s work addresses notions of cultural memory, of time and the places between to create sensory spaces and haptic experiences that transform our perceptions. 

Speaking to her engagement with printmaking, Penelope comments

I feel rooted in print, as it is the medium that slows me down to consider and to hear more clearly my thoughts. It acts much like a sorting process. As most [print] methods are heavily based in a step-by-step system of actions to produce the desired effect, you must break down the image and the parts and connect those to the methods. For me this quiet, almost meditative approach helps to organize and edit the chatter in my creative self. I know from experience that if I miss a step that is it …for the work and I must start again. Printmaking is a place of centering and focus for me…a ritual way of breaking down the thoughts to find the more essential parts to negotiate the edges of what I am considering.

Penelope Stewart holds an MFA from the State University of New York at Buffalo, NY and is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts (RCA). She has received numerous grants and awards from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council and has been the recipient of several honours including First Prize at the Centre for Perceptual Arts (CEPA), New York and Ontario; the Nick Novak Fellow at Open Studio, Toronto; and a public commission for Maison Alexandre Stern in Paris, France. Stewart’s work has been the subject of exhibitions at notable institutions including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York; Koffler Gallery, Ontario; Oakville Galleries, Ontario; Medalta Museum, Alberta; and ACT Design Museum, Australia.